The design method of performance-based design is going to be introduced to the Japanese bridge design. Therefore, it's worth to reevaluate the use of standard plans, which was one of the conventional design methods based on specification-based regulation. This paper deals with the history of standard plans for roadway bridges focused on concrete T-beam Bridges. We aim to clarify the outline of the historical transitions, purposes and actual uses for summarizing historical perspective of them. The results show the discrepancy between intended purposes and actual uses after 1970's. At the end of this paper, the result of this historical review implies what the future bridge design method should be.

View full abstract

This paper points out some problems of naive travel cost method (TCM) that considers only the travel cost to the study site. TCM needs demand function with regard to the entrance fee of the study site, however, only the demand function with regard to travel cost is observable. We treat two cases (i) there exists substitutes, and (ii) residential land rents are variable among sample data. It is proved that under these cases, the naive TCM, which is based on the demand function with only the travel cost to the study site, brings overestimation or underestimation of the ture benefits. In each of which cases, we propose how to sample data to identify the demand function appropriate for TCM using the market data.

View full abstract

If peoples do not trust in government at all, they would not support government at all. Absence of trust in government would force government to stop implementing all the public works. With this recognition, this study tries to explore approaches to develop peoples' trust in government, while proposing a cognitive process model for trust development.Two approaches for trust development were discussed; that is, improvement of transparency of public works, and implementation of public works with egoistic and temporal losses for people. It was then discussed that the former approach has faults that is large cost for development of transparency and side effects of reduction of trust, and the latter is therefore only viable and effective.

View full abstract

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is used to optimize public investments and its procedures have been established for most urban public services in many countries. However, once CBA is mandatory, residents can strategically behave taking the CBA method into account. The strategic behavior is facilitated by a dynamic inconsistency in which the CBA-based optimal service level depends on the behaviors of residents. The paper discusses the dynamic inconsistency problem taking transportation service as an example and concludes that the problem may decrease both, social welfare and the utility of residents, as compared with the first best case.

View full abstract

This study aims to elucidate attitude formation in group situation. We conducted a psychological experiment which was controlled self profit, procedural justice and group pressure. As a result, following findings were obtained. 1) Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that self-profit and group pressure were important factors of attitude formation in group situation. 2) Approximately, 10% of subjects who were under group pressure were influenced by public conformity. 3) Adding to subjects who were influenced by private conformity, about 40% of subjects were influenced by group pressure. 4) It was suggested that conformity, private interests, and procedural fairness were important factors that differentiate between private acceptance and compliance. 5) When people behave in conformity, if low private interests, low procedural fairness, and high group pressure are perceived, they behave in compliance. However, if high private interests, high procedural fairness, and sort of high group pressure are perceived, they behave in private acceptance.

View full abstract

Physical distribution in Japan is characterized by smaller scale, high frequency, and its complexity caused by demand of consumers and competition in business fields. There are business practices that contribute to inefficient distribution. As a result, excessive distribution services that ignore efficiency and environment are provided, causing inefficient freight traffic, particularly an increased load on road traffic, traffic congestion, and environmental problems. For these reasons, this study was undertaken to clarify existing conditions in order to identify business practices that reduce the efficiency of freight transport which they cause in these fields by surveying existing research and interviewing members of some companies, and based on these findings, clarifying improvement measures that will contribute to greater efficiency. In addition, existing statistics were studied, clarifying how effectively the improvement of business practies would reduce load on freight traffic.

View full abstract

Maintaining the pedestrian spaces with few barriers is necessary for social development, so the analysis on pedestrian route choice behavior becomes more important to construct and manage them. Since so far most of quantitative studies in relation to pedestrian route choice behavior were conducted in an individual district, the general model that was applicable to various types of street networks had not been developed. Therefore, this study focuses on the spatial relationship between the pedestrian's current location and destination, and aims to construct a generally model with universal validity in various types of street networks.

View full abstract

The main purpose of road pricing policy is to improve air environment, but there is little existing research which analyzed the change of freight transport, which has big influence to air environment, at the time of implementing road pricing. Then, in this paper, we classify the specific changes of freight transport by road pricing, and especially analyze change of transshipping freight and change of freight car OD resulting from it. We build methodology for describing whether goods is delivered directly to destionation or is transshipped at distribution center on the way with discrete choice framework. We also propose a process of building data required for the model estimation from a goods flow survey. Finally, the model is applied to cordon pricing currently planned in Tokyo central area.

View full abstract

Mobility Management (MM) is a transportation management policy that adopts soft measures for the purpose of reducing car use and promoting sustainable transportation modes. MM tries to induce people to change voluntarily by means of communication. We implemented MM to promote an experimental community bus service. This project had two components: a communicative questionnaire survey conducted in the service area and a monthly newsletter. As a result comparing the initial and follow-up survey, MM produced a general increase in bus use, and induced mouth-to-mouth advertising. The results show that Mobility Management was effective in promoting bus use.

View full abstract

This study shows a method to calculating the marginal cost in the departure time choice problem. It is known that additional demand at the beginning of congestion duration raises the marginal cost of road congestion if no driver changes their departure times. This study analyzes the characteristics of marginal cost with the assumption that drivers can change their departure times. The concept of the "chain", which describes driver's behaviour of time choice, is devised to calculate the marginal cost. It is revealed that the marginal cost can be different whether drivers tend to divert their arrival time to the beginning of the congestion or the end of the congestion.

View full abstract

In recent years, great progresses have been made in the creation of GIS software and spatial information databases. In transportation planning, it is also desirable to incorporate the transportation facilities data and traffic flow data with these databases and to show the analysis visually. As the first step to achieve this goal, this paper proposes a system that creates network datasets automatically from map images and digital map data. It also shows a more pratical method that uses both center lines of Digital Map 2500 and the image of city planning maps as sources to create network datasets. Since the network dataset created here is in the form of geographical coordinates, it serves as a platform for the further development of traffic analysis using GIS.

View full abstract

Travel demand forecasting, which was conducted by public administration for implementing transportaion planning, has been criticized severely because of the failure of future prediction. Recently, the importance of the prediction with interval in consideration of future uncertainty has been widely recognized. However, it has never been examined that how they should show residents a prediction result with interval and acquire public concensus. This study aims at clarifying a problem about travel demand forecasting. First, it clarified that the essence of residents' consciousness about travel demand forecasting through the attitude survey. Second, the structural models of public attitude towards travel demand forecasting were analyzed. Finally, the empirical analysis result showed that the possibility of accepting prediction result with interval by residents and how to show residents a prediction results were discussed.

View full abstract

SCGE models make detailed regional analyses possible in countries where only limited regional statistics are available. We have been developing a SCGE model for China, which explicitly considers the role of transport sector and the FOB · CIF price differentials. After briefly describing the model, we evaluate the performance of our model by comparing the benchmark equilibrium for 1987 with the only published survey-based interregional table by Ichimura & Wang. We then try to summarize the structure of Chinese economies using the information obtained from the benchmark, including regional and sectoral production distributions and price differentials. Our empirical results also refer to the equilibrium for 1997, which enables us to discuss the changes in regional economic structures that China has experienced in the decade.

View full abstract

A method for evaluating LCC of pavements considering drivers’ route choice behaviors is proposed in this study. Extension of existing models, which can deal with one link or a few links, to new one that can deal with road network as a whole and drivers’ route choices, is carried out. LCC minimization problem is formulated as a bi-level problem in which two problems, i.e. LCC minimization as upper level problem, and user equilibrium assignment expressing drivers’ route choices as lower level problem, are included. A simple numerical example is also presented. This example shows the effect from traffic congestions brought by repair works on LCC which can not be considered in the existing models.

View full abstract

The author has developed a static computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of Obihiro metropolitan area's economy, Japan, internalizing waste recycling. Taking into account the sustainable growth and/or human and environmental symbiosis, however, the static model has a strong limitation. Thus it is necessary to develop an intertemporal model. From this point of view, this article aims to develop an intertemporal CGE model maximizing the sum of discounted utility function of the representative household in our previous model. And then the intertemporal economic effects of promotion of waste recycling are simulated applying this model. From the simulation results, price fall of recycled good for an increase of 20% in waste recycling rate and household choice pattern in consumption and saving etc. are obtained as intertemporal general equilibrium effects.

View full abstract

The large-scale traffic congestion which occurred directly after the Hanshin Awaji earthquake provides extremely important lessons with respect to earthquake disaster response measures. However, even now that over ten years have passed, it cannot be said that these lessons have been adequately applied to current disaster prevention plan. It could be said that one of the reasons for this is that exactly what sort of problems were caused has not been fully recounted, and that the true lessons have not been passed on to the present-day. Accordingly, in this research we survey all research and documentation regarding the transportation conditions in that time, and formulate an understanding of the state of a full cross-section of inflow into the disaster area directly after the disaster, and the types of traffic generated by the disaster. In doing so, we re-clarify the phenomena that occurred during the emergency response period of several tens of hours after the earthquake occurred. Further, based on this analysis, we recount the lessons that can be learned from the Great Hanshin earthquake with respect to traffic management measures during large, urban disasters and clarify the current counter-measure challenges.

View full abstract

Wavelet analysis is being applied in the numerical analysis and the digital image analysis in the fields of mathematics, physics, medical science by reason that frequency response can be understood at each position using wave data in unsteady condition. The railway maitenace are desired to apply wavelet analysis for track irregularities and vehicle mavements in analysis of space frequency. In this study, it is clarified Morlet wavelet transformation is a useful method for the estimation of wavelength and amplidude of the elements of track lateral irregularities and horizontal vehicle mavements as the first step of wavelet study.

View full abstract