Abstract
How has the frequency distribution of domestic leisure travel changed in the past few decades? Where has change occurred? What effects has the new HSR (High Speed Railway) service had on of travel generation patterns? In order to answer these questions, we analyzed temporal changes in the travel frequency distribution of overnight and one-day leisure travel by the Japanese from 1991 until 2011. The results of the temporal analyses indicated that the average frequency of overnight travel decreased over 20 years, the zero frequency ratio increased, and the inequality of travel frequency among individuals also expanded. Moreover, the authors propose a travel frequency model and explain spatiotemporal change in terms of three effects (age, birth cohort, and period in each prefecture). The analyses using the model indicated that the travel frequency distribution was very different among prefectures. We then compared the spatiotemporal change of the frequency distribution with HSR construction. As a result, we did not observe any positive effects of the new HSR services on travel frequency. This indicates that HSR service may affect only destination choice or mode choice, not on travel generation patterns of leisure travel.
