Abstract
The public transportation system in many areas of low dense and dispersed urban functions in Japan has suffered a severe decline. In particular, the bus system in rural and urban areas with decrease in population and advance of motorization has remarkably decayed. Under this circumstance, the mobility of the people who are not available to drive an automobile is going to reduce through the decline of the bus transportation service.
Thus, the study of bus system in the areas has become an important and urgent topic of discussion in regional transportation planning. The purpose of this paper is to make the bus use characteristics in the areas clear, and to reorganize the long distance bus system corresponding to the bus demand Structure.
The data for analysis, in which 756 households and 1, 772 people are contained, are obtained by the comprehensive bus transportation survey conducted at Tano Rural and Urban Area, Gunma Prefecture. Why we chose this area was because the average number of cars per family was ranked in the first in Japan, and the bus routes had long distance system with curiosity.
Based on the investigation of the present and future sitiuation of bus use and the mind, this paper clarified the bus use mechanism and the demand structure. As a result, the proper long distance bus system was derived, and the other some suggestions were given for improving the public transportation system in the rural and urban areas with decrease in population and advance of motorization.
