地方鉄道の持続可能性に関する研究

──東日本旅客鉄道から経営分離された第三セクター鉄道での事例研究──

抄録

  The mission of this study is to give valuable insights and solutions for foundation factors of regionalrailway commercial sustainability.

  For the purpose of the study, we analyzed population data in some station-neighbored areas based onstatistical GIS data (500 meters mesh population data published by the central government), because populationin an area is considered as one typical foundation factor.We also analyzed other related indexesdescribed in the statistical data book.

  We focused on three railways ; Shinano Railway, IGR Iwate Galaxy Railway and Aoimori Railway.These railways were transformed from the inter-regional railway to regional railways, because they wereseparated from the East Japan Railway.However, they are still a part of the inter-regional railway network,because of freight train operation.

  Main achievements of this study are as follows ; there is a high correlation between the number ofstation passengers and population in the station-neighbored area, but no correlation between traffic densityand population in the station-neighbored area.

  On the other hand, traffic density of each railway is decreasing, even though each railway has madeefforts to attract more passengers, especially by developing new stations.Additionally, we also foundthat IGR Iwate Galaxy Railway and Aoimori Railway depend on revenue from freight train operationsincluding government subsidies.

JEL Classifications:O18, R14, R42