2024 Volume 80 Issue 20 Article ID: 24-20120
Social changes caused by COVID-19 have had a significant impact on demand for rail services, and it has yet to fully recover to pre-COVID-19 levels. The extent of the impact on passenger numbers varies by railway operator. In the Tokyo metropolitan area, demand for commuter trains is high, and changes in the way people work have had a significant impact. Among these, the impact of the spread of teleworking is significant; however, even in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the implementation of teleworking is not uniform. This is thought to be the reason for the differences in the impact on passenger numbers for each railway operator. In this study, we confirmed that the differences in the impact of telework on railway demand for commuting purposes can be explained to some extent by differences in telework rates by prefecture and industry, as well as by differences in the composition ratios of employed and working populations by industry. Using these results, we estimated demand reflecting the decrease in commuting frequency due to telework by area, operator, and line, and clarified the differences in impact.
