2019 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 1-10
In mountainous areas that have many neighborhoods without public transportation, maintaining and ensuring daily transportation is an important task for keeping communities alive. Recently, micro electric Vehicles (MEVs), which are small vehicles for 1 or 2 passengers and which have environmental-friendly features, have drawn attention as a new mode of daily transportation in mountainous areas. For this study, based on MEVs introduction experiment conducted in Ueyama area in Mimasaka city, we examined the effects of MEV introduction in a mountainous area through detailed investigation of the actual situation, future tasks, merits, and other factors related to MEV. Results clarified that most people who joined the survey recognized both difficulties and benefits of MEV, irrespective of the frequency of their use. However, the frequency of MEV was influenced by respondents’ conventional behaviors. For high-frequency users, CO2 emissions amounts and fuel costs for transportation would be markedly reduced, although their evaluation of transportation convenience tended to rise.
