Applicability of Japanese Ensen Kaihatsu Concept for Effective Land Use in Transit Stations along Railways in Colombo

抄録

Mixed land use and travel behavior are two important factors that describe the development of an urban environment. For a better interdependency between land use and transportation systems, for developing countries like Sri Lanka, it is important to have sophisticated transit systems and land use planning. Ensen Kaihatsu is a concept related to Transit Oriented Development (TOD), originated in Japan, which means development along railway line. Therefore, this study focused on quantitatively evaluating the applicability of Ensen Kaihatsu concept for land use planning around transit stations in Colombo. The study was based on two key analysis, which were preliminary time series analysis on land use and person trip data of the Tama Garden City (Den-en-toshi line) and a forecast study on change in daily railway passenger ridership and land use allocation for the case of Sri Lanka. In the preliminary analysis it was identified that the increase in residential and commercial land use around each transit station has resulted in an increase in daily railway passenger ridership and development of the area as a residential-commercial area. For the forecast study, single objective land use allocation optimization model approach was considered in developing the basic functions, in which the objective function was to maximize the daily railway passenger ridership, for a time series of 30 years. In order to identify the most optimized land use allocation to implement the Ensen Kaihatsu concept in Colombo, linear programming approach was used. Ultimately, the study indicated that application of Ensen Kaihatsu concept for land use planning in Colombo would result in a higher daily railway passenger ridership. Furthermore, application of single objective land use allocation optimization model based on linear programming approach resulted in the most effective land use allocation to provide the highest daily railway passenger ridership in each station considered. Accordingly, it was observed that positioning of each station as a network and land use planning in the perspective on Ensen Kaihatsu concept could result in an improvement in the quality of space around each transit station in Colombo.