The purpose of the study is to analyze route choice behavior based on the Free-Flow ETC data using generalized means formula for urban expressway. The estimation by logit model using generalized means formula is shown that the travel time information, congestion information and difference of OD distance are significant for the route choice. The traffic information such as the accident information, the vehicle breakdowns information and the maintenance information are also regarded as important. The model shown that the traffic information is significant for the route choice, and user's choice behavior is sensitively for information.

View full abstract

The objective of the study is to analyze time series changes in tourists' behavior using individual data of several tourism statistics. This study shows that for the same question, differences are observed among the statistics. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the way of sample extraction, and at the same time combining those statistics enables an extensive analysis with broad items. The study also find that hot spring used to be the most popular activities, but the favor had been decreasing. The results of cohort analysis, which discomposes influence of a phenomenon into period, age and cohort, support the decrease in favor of hot spring. The study also discuss the data fusion between domestic tourists' behavior data and inter-city transportation data.

View full abstract

In this research, the authors focused on the subjective evaluation of the bus such as atmosphere or sense of security as evaluation of semantic side in contrast to functional side such as convenience. This paper clarified the evaluation of semantic side by analyzing questionary survey that asked the concrete evaluation and concept evaluation of the bus.
About the evaluation structure of the semantic side, we clarified it in analyzing such as illustration by text mining, grouping by quantification III analysis, and illustration by the SD profile. We showed consideration for the utilization afterwards.
The questionary survey was carried out for a user and the nonusers of the route bus of Hikone-shi, Shiga.

View full abstract

The reliability of road networks is becoming more and more important. There are several kinds of road network reliability. So far, the road network reliabilities have not been investigated and evaluated together. In this study, we focus on the travel time reliability and connectivity reliability, which are typically used and popular. We define an expected total cost which includes travel time and connectivity (un)reliabilities, and develop a unified evaluation method of both reliabilities. The traffic stochastic assignment that can assess the two reliabilities is incorporated into the proposed method. Then, the method is applied to Kanazawa road network and its applicability is examined.

View full abstract

This study analyzes usage of community cycle system (CCS) using data obtained a pilot program in Nagoya city. In this paper, lending frequency model involved potential demand for each station is constructed. As a result, it is shown that CCS induced new trips for shopping or sightseeing but were used instead of walk or public transportation. It can be said that CCS can contribute to the revitalization of the inner city but may reduce public transportation usage in area with sufficient service level of public transportation. Moreover, it is found that purpose of CCS usage and demand of CCS is different between weekday and weekend, and even in a day and that land use and city function around the stations strongly relate to the purpose of CCS usage. Those findings are useful when planning location of CCS's stations and operation system.

View full abstract

Bicycle lanes with legal control have been introduced on carriageway as a governmental pilot project since 2008 in Japan. However the facility design standard for cyclists on roadways is not determined yet while many standards remain the same as for cars/drivers. There are few researches on cyclists' specific eye movement and behavior with road conditions. The amount of information on road should be minimized to avoid confusion, but required to be an informative road space for bicyclists even without driving license. Therefore, some empirical experiments have been conducted to understand differences of cyclist's eye movement and behavior on various types of facilities.

View full abstract

This study makes verification analysis of a ramp metering control strategy using Macroscopic Funda-mental Diagram. One of the greatest advantages of the control is that the control can be operated without OD information. In this analysis, the driver's route choice behavior model is constructed, in which they choose their route, expressway or arterial. Then, applying a simulation model with the route choice model to an actual expressway network and an actual OD demand, the analysis has been done. The results show that operation of the control has benefits to improve the traffic states on expressway and to increase in-flow traffic. In other words, it is shown that the traffic flows not only on expressway but also on arterial could be improved by operating the proposed metering control.

View full abstract

Electric Vehicle (EV) is coming up as an eco-friendly next-generation vehicle. A lot of companies release plans to sell EV, and then it is expected that EV becomes a means of transportation in daily life in the near future. This study aims to pose an optimal routing problem of EV considering gradients (slopes) of roads. An optimal routing problem of EV differs from that of conventional cars, because electricity consumption and cruising range vary with inner states (battery performance and weight) of EV and the use of regenerative brake. In this study, a calculation model of electricity consumption of EV considering gradients is proposed. The influence of road gradient on an optimal routing of EV is also evaluated.

View full abstract

In Tokyo, recently, rapid urban developments around railway stations in the city centre have been causing serious overcrowding at stations, in particular, the crowding of passengers on station platforms. But, rapid urban development around the station brings immediate load on the station, the ability for station facilities to handle an increase in passengers is not clearly understood. Therefore, this study tries to study toward ‘countermeasures for preventing the overcrowding at stations caused by urban development in the city centre’. Concretely, the outcomes of this study as follows: (1) By developing an original passengers counting system on a mobile phone, we made it possible to measure at random locations the per second flow of outgoing passengers which change moment by moment at the station facility at the peak time's. This had been difficult to measure before this study. (2) From the situation analysis of the overcrowding at the station, it became clear that, if disembarking passengers are remaining when doors of the next train are opened, the processing capacity of the station facility drops and the remnant of passengers expand. This shows that it is important to clear all passengers of the previous train before doors of the subsequent train open. (3) Keeping this (2) in mind, we suggested the ‘maximum outgoing passengers for a station facility’ as how much the station facility can accept in terms of the increase of passengers, and then analysed it concretely.

View full abstract

Under the recent progressive trend toward decentralization, the role of local governments related to city planning is becoming more important. Realizing a low-carbon society necessitates the advocacy of an appropriate policy for the municipal master plan considering how much automobile CO₂ emissions each local government can allow. In this study, we examine the policy in the future using the following analysis: 1) calculating automobile CO₂ emissions in 38 cities based on the latest data; 2) clarifying the factors of automobile CO₂ emissions by the regression model, to which time-series analysis can be applied; and 3) confirming correspondence of the factor of policy in municipal master plan from the regression model. Results show that automobile CO₂ emissions switched to a decreasing trend from 2005 in some cities. Furthermore, results revealed that not only density and urban layout, but also the private car ownership rate influences automobile CO₂ emissions.

View full abstract

This study aims to grasp residents' consciousness and social benefit of green tram tracks. This study has conducted questionnaire survey in Kagoshima city as a case study. Tram of Kagoshima city has 8900m tracks and constructed 6460m green tracks until March 2011. We have obtained questionnaire samples of 327 household and found out that residents' consciousness was made progress than before and that willingness-to-pay of residents also increased once green tram tracks had been constructed. As a result, annual social benefit was estimated at least 100 million yen.

View full abstract

As the intercity traffic flow is decreasing, some local governments should try to keep or improve their accessibility to other cities using public subsidy to intercity transport service. In order to efficiently concentrate their resource for improvement of accessibility, local governments should pick up links where LOS elasticity is comparatively large. In this paper, the intercity demand estimation model with heterogeneous LOS sensitivity is proposed. This model is valuable for calculating LOS elasticity and considering the efficient way to keep accessibility for local city.

View full abstract

The Railway in Shikoku region is less competitive than private cars in terms of its speed. Coupled with the motorization and de-population, the number of passengers has been drastically declined and that makes it difficult to keep the regional network because of the decline of income from passenger. Railway is expected to have a role of a basic social infrastructure to ensure the right to travel of people, and role of a strategic infrastructure for sustainable society. In this study, the socio-economic impact of high-speed rail in Shikoku is examined under the de-populating situation until 2035.
As a result, the speed up of railway will increase the number of passengers and improve the financial condition of railway operators. These results indicate that the public investment on high speed rail in Shikoku can be justified from the view point of efficiency and equity.

View full abstract

Recently, the number of passenger of public bus transport in Japan tends to decrease due to the motorization. This condition leads to a severe management situation, including in Arao City. The deficit of bus companies operation in provision of bus services in Arao City has been covered by Arao City Government on the basis of lines subsidy, and the city allocated a number of subsidy of about 53 million yen in 2011.To solve this problem, we pay attention to incentive scheme. This study aims to construct the mathematical model of the incentive subsidy scheme considering elastic demand and this paper includes application to bus network in Arao City to analyze the utility level of incentive subsidy model.

View full abstract

The marine container terminal is operated by various types of handling equipment. The relevant terminal layout is suitable to the equipment type. We focus on the type of handling equipment assigned to the terminals in the world. We consider the effect of equipment type and layout on the container arrangement. The differences among equipment types are following: (1) the service time depends on the path location for yard trailer or straddle carrier movement, (2) the total capacity of container storage is determined by the size and mobility for equipment. Therefore, we set two objective functions as minimizing the total service time and minimizing the space utilization to this problem. We obtain the solution set consisted by multiple non-dominated solutions. In order to compare among types of handling equipment, we find the true Pareto set from the combined set by the solutions obtained in the terminal which each equipment type is assigned. We find which equipment type does the non-dominated solution included in the true Pareto obtains from. From the computational results, the non-dominated solutions included in the true Pareto set are independent on the ship arrival pattern and the pattern of ship berthing locations, those are more solutions obtained by RTG. And among them, the service levels with around half of solutions obtained by RTG are equal to those with solutions obtained by RMG. However, there is a little solution obtained by SC in the true Pareto set.

View full abstract

Supply and demand adjustment policy for railway service had been aborted and Railway Business Act had been also amended in 2000. These changes have made new entry into railway business easier while only a prior notification enables railway discontinuous instead of rigid permission for the withdrawal. This policy abolition aims improvements of railway service level under open competition, on the other hand local rail service have declined in the countryside.
In this paper, transition of getting into or pulling out of railway businesses have been researched with comparative study before-and-after the abolition and effects of the policy change have been cleared. As a result, it was found that many railways operated by major private companies or joint ventures of local governments and private businesses became just dead tracks without any rolling stocks after the policy turnaround.

View full abstract

Because of atrophy of public traffic in recent years, it became hard for aged people who can't drive private car to transfer place to place. Security transportation mode has an effort in improving QOL, improving opportunities of going out or mingling other people, for aged people. In many cities, aged people can be covered by preferential system for using public traffic. In this study, as an example that aged people's coin bus systems in Akita city, We research improving QOL by aged people's discount fare of using public traffic and citizen reception consciousness to the system. Thanks for discount fare, having effects that increasing number of times going out and expansion sphere of action by aged people. And it is show that citizen consciousness of using discount fare system becomes high in the future. But it is proved that both of aged people and citizen are anxious about continuance the system. The more citizen interested in the system, more awareness about effective improving QOL for aged people so we must expand common knowledge effective for discount fare system. To the system will become effective, it is necessity to understanding about the effect to undertaking by citizen as using subjects in the future.

View full abstract

The increased use of recycled and renewable resources is important for achieving sustainable society. The Ministry of Environment in Japan is planning to introduce legislation for promoting recycling of Small size home electrical appliance and exploring efficient collection system by involving recycling industries. The recycling industries face significant uncertainty in quantity of collected Small size home electrical appliance. Some papers and collection experiments point out variation of collection amount and such uncertainties create disincentives for recycling. We propose a recycler model of Small size home electrical appliance with uncertainty in the amount of collection and examine the effect of introducing budget of uncertainty. We showed that the average profit is increased by considering the budget of uncertainty, when the recycler faces large uncertainty. We found that the standard robust optimization approach, that assume the worst case scenario, does not always minimize the risk, there may exist more desirable scenario.

View full abstract

Sports Bicycles have an advantage for promote long distance commuting and activity for health because higher speed, longer drives can be achieved, comparing with city bicycles which are used widely in Japan. For this reason, it would be important to spread and promote sport type bicycles for the purpose of creation of environmental and healthful cities.
This study aims at proposing promotion schemes for sports bicycles by employing narrative analysis of avid cyclists and internet questionnaire survey of sports bicycle users, focusing on their promoting and inhibiting factors, favor on road environment and attitudes to promoting schemes. Consequently, it found as promoting factor, for example, exist of accompanying person for beginners, experience of cycling which can feel challenge and accomplishment sprits. On the basis of these results, the authors proposed some promotion schemes.

View full abstract

In recent years, the use of public transport has decreased in the progress of rural depopulation and declining birthrate and aging population, by the spread of private cars. However, because there are always vulnerable road users, public transport can not be abolished easily. In addition, the merger of municipalities will be done actively, so the demand for public transport is expected to change. So, in many local governments are faced with the need for restructuring public transport. In this study, I conducted a questionnaire survey on public transport to target the cities of the country, and the current situation and to understand the challenges of public transport in each city, and I classify the merger of municipalities by the cluster analysis to clarify trends and issues of public transportation policies each classification.

View full abstract

Many bicycle users believe that they ride bicycles safer on sidewalks than on roadways. It is pointed out that vehicle drivers find bicycles on sidewalks hardly but the accidents between them are not discussed yet. So in this study, we analyzed the accidents during cycling at the roads with sidewalks in Ota Ward in Tokyo. As the result, it is revealed that 1) the head collisions with bicycles or pedestrians occur at wider sidewalks, 2) accidents with vehicles occur during bicycling on sidewalk even in the right way whereas most of them occur during bicycling on roadway in the wrong way, and 3) the factors of accidents with vehicles both on midblocks and intersections are the two-way and the poor visibility for vehicle drivers during bicycling on sidewalks. So we can conclude that the cycling on especially wider sidewalks is not always safer than on roadways.

View full abstract

Rebuilding the operation scheme of public transportation is a recent topic of discussion in Japan because the number of passengers is decreasing especially in rural areas. However, the discussion depending on the knowledge from transport data such as tendency of boarding and alighting volume, its daily variation and so on is only a few cases especially in rural areas of Japan. On the other hand, recently, usage of smart cards for public transport purchases is growing even in the rural area. That means the data of public transport passengers are continually collected, and it can be fundamental information to discuss about public transport marketing strategies. This paper describes evaluation of transfer points of public transportation applying Data Envelop Analysis (DEA) using smart card data. Since DEA can consider several types data at once, this paper evaluate the points using information about public transport users by smart card data and Bus/Tram operation information as input and output for BCC model of DEA. To evaluate the points by DEA, firstly this paper proposes three index to describe efficiency of transfer points such as are evaluate transfer time, variance of transfer time and trip dependency for transfer points. From the results, it showed clearly difference by each index. And this research also evaluate considering time period (morning, daytime and night) and age of the users using transfer time evaluation, and the evaluation results showed on the map. Results with considering time period shows that morning and daytime are not so different, however it shows night time can be different efficiency since the schedule of public transportation is not same with morning and daytime. Results with considering age is also shows difference of efficiency. Therefore, when people who is related public transport scheme planning should make it clear their priority and target to develop better transfer planning.

View full abstract

In the rural area, D.R.T. system is expected with the efficiency compared with the ordinal bus services. It should be designed with the consideration of the situation of travel demand and regional factors. Still there exist several alternative of D.R.T. operation, realistic design standard does not exist especially for semi-dynamic operation, that might be suitable to the region with relatively higher demand density.
This study clarified the relationship between special distribution of travel demand and efficiency of the operation, with the simulation on artificial town image and the dataset of actual user demand under D.R.T. operation.

View full abstract

Many drivers make the driving plans to the destination using the driving maps for the unfamiliar destination. And the routes planned by the drivers could change depend on the road information in the map.
After explained that the route numbers in the map are very useful as the information for the drivers to plan the driving plans, this paper clarified through the experiment that the planned routes might be affected if the road numbers in the maps are written in single or duplicate. The experiment showed that the less was the number of road number required to remember to drive the route, the more drivers chose the route. Furthermore, the analysis of the glance using eye-mark recorder cleared that the pattern of glance move of the drivers on the map have something to do with planned routes.

View full abstract

In Matsue urban areas, Workplace Mobility Management (MM) has been implemented continuously since 2007. In addition, Matsue has been carrying out “No Car Week (NCW)” since 2009 in order to spread the MM to the whole citizens. In this paper, we clarify some important effects of continuing workplace MM. The first effect is easing traffic congestion (ex. traffic volume and traffic jam). The second effect is attitude change and behavioral modification by establishing “Matsu-ECO Plan (Workplace travel plan)”. The third is heightening consciousness toward town management by the ongoing implementation of the MM.
These results show that the following. First, the traffic volume reduces not only during the NCW but also the normal times. Second, “Matsu-ECO Plan” stimulates participation to NCW. Finally, the ongoing efforts of the MM heighten consciousness toward town management.

View full abstract

In recent years, as carsharing services are being expanded by private business operators, it has begun to be recognized as one of the means of transportation. To diffuse the carsharing service, this study investigates the characteristics of carsharing members in comparison with non-members, and sensitivity to service changes by Web-based questionnaire survey. As a result, while the differences in attitudes toward automobile are observed between members and non-members, carsharing can spread by improving its convenience. Also oneway trip service and introduction of electric vehicles provide high use intention of the members and regarded effective for the spread of carsharing.

View full abstract

Although demand responsive transport service has been spread over in order to secure mobility of the transport poor, there remain people who cannot receive the service or people in the region of low population density such as mountainous area where even demand service is not effective. Transport service for such people's travel demand to hospital and shopping becomes an important policy in rural areas. Taxi fare subsidy scheme have been introduced as a measure to secure mobility of such people in several local governments. This study aims at clarifying the characteristics and problems of a taxi fare subsidy schemes in local governments. By employing interview survey of operators, characteristics of fare subsidy system is compared within cases. Citizen's consciousness for the selection of people to get subsidy and subsidy level are analyzed by the internet questionnaire survey. As a result, taxi fare subsidy scheme for elderlypeople has less amount of payment by government compared with taxi fare subsidy scheme for disabled people. Even citizens want less government's payment for the scheme; they prefer to secure enough mobility of persons in difficult situation.

View full abstract

Many bicycle lanes are now constructing in Japan, but bicycle accident analyses concerning keeping lane of bicycle in whole local area have not been carried out. So all bicycle accidents occurred at Tokatsu District in Chiba Pref. were extracted, and accident spots were plotted on digital map to show vehicle travel direction of bicycle accidents. To utilize these indexes, vehicle turning direction and accident type, bicycle keeping lanes on accidents were estimated. These bicycle accidents data were analyzed and accidents of keeping right bicycle with car tended to occur more than ones of keeping left bicycle with car. But bicycle accidents on non-intersection were extracted and analyzed, accidents of keeping left bicycle with straight through car tended to occur more on non-intersection. So it was indicated that countermeasure for these bicycle accidents are needed.

View full abstract

The number of accidents of mobility scooters is increasing. The mechanism of decelerating the speed of a mobility scooter is developed using the laser range finder. When the laser range finder notices barriers on direction of travel, deceleration is made automatically. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the improvement of maneuverability of mobility scooter by automatic deceleration. As the result automatic deceleration can be improved driving performance without worsening convenience. That shows the automatic deceleration can improve the safety and the operativity of a mobility scooter. And automatic deceleration can support driving of unaccustomed drivers.

View full abstract

It is important to install effective countermeasures to decrease the number of pedestrian accidents because of the highest percentage within the fatal accidents from 2008. To decrease the number of pedestrian accidents installing the measures to assist pedestrians to establish safe crossing at the crosswalk would be important The objective of this study is to analyze the behavior of pedestrian when crossing the crosswalk, while there are many researches that analyzes from the viewpoint of drivers. Experiment was conducted at the simulated intersection in the test track to understand the head-turning behavior of crossing pedestrians towards the approaching vehicle. By the result of analyses, it is clarified that head-turning frequency is increasing towards the entry of the crosswalk and at the conflict point. Moreover, results by the analysis of the frequency of head-turning by the different attributes shows interesting characteristics that head-turning frequency at nighttime or by the elderly person tended to be low. These results could show that there is a need to provide the information of approaching vehicle. By the results utilizing the questionnaire data, many important locations where crossing pedestrians should confirm the approaching vehicle to ensure their safety is clarified from the comparison analysis between the groups that have adequate confirmation or not.

View full abstract

Eulerian observations such as traffic detectors are mainly used for observations of traffic state (flow rate, density, speed, etc.). However, implementing dense and wide-ranging Eulerian observations is almost impossible due to its installation and maintenance cost. On the other hand, Lagrangian observations such as GPS-equipped probe vehicles can observe entire road network with relatively low cost for road administrators. However, some of the traffic state factors such as flow rate are un-observable using only GPS-equipped probe vehicles. Recently, several devices that measure spacing data from cruising vehicles have been developed in automotive engineering field to enhance driving safety. These spacing data may be closely related to the traffic density, thus there is a possibility to estimate traffic state using such spacing measuring devices. This study assumes a new type of probe vehicle which observes its position and its spacing. An estimation method of traffic state solely depends on probe vehicles data is formulated. To validate the method performance, the numerical characteristics of the method are examined using a microscopic traffic simulator. As the results of the analysis, the developed method has a certain good estimation performance with fewer assumptions compared with conventional methods.

View full abstract

In Europe and the United States the Field Operational Tests of Cooperative ITS (C-ITS: the system can realize to promote the wide range of ITS service's utilization by integrating communication of vehicle (V) to V, V to infrastructure (I) and I to I) have been conducted actively on the basis of government policy. This paper shows the result of research and comparative analysis on device, communication, service content and so on of C-ITS in Europe, the US and Japan. And we made a study on the system architecture of Japan's ITS services to be realized in the mid and long term according with socioeconomic tidal current and current technology such as advanced vehicular and communication technology. Based on this architecture we picked out C-ITS services set out to be newly provided in the mid and long term after we examined the status of deployment or R&D. And we considered the direction of next generation ITS research based on the current national policy on ITS.

View full abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze how the use of free passes influent on lifestyles of suburb inhabitants around train stations. Many suburb residential areas have developed as bedroom community in Japan. Today, however, such areas have many problems: reduction of population, aging of inhabitants, and so on. With aging of inhabitants, the luck of elderly people's QOL is getting more and more serious. Some measures have been taken in such areas, but they have not had enough effect. On the other hand, urban areas also have serious problems of hollowing. So as to deal with this, the concept of “Compact City” is proposed and adopted on some laws, but few cities have realized this concept.

View full abstract

This study extends the statistical model which predicts travel time with its variability. The variability is represented by an interval that covers the actually experienced travel time at a certain probability. The purpose of this study is to improve the previous model to cover congestion caused by a merging section, such as a junction. We assume that travel time variability changes according to congestion of the other line merged with the target section of the travel time prediction. This is because the congestion in merging line may decrease the capacity of the bottleneck. Instead of considering the real time capacity of the bottleneck directly, this study employs the occupancy to represent the state of the merging line.
We employ the data in Kobe line of Han-shin Expressway to validate the proposed model. The head of the target section is a bottleneck caused by merging. As a result of the analysis, the accuracy of point estimation of travel time was not improved. However the accuracy of prediction interval was partially improved. The prediction interval estimated by the previous model did not cover the experienced travel time at enough probability when the occupancy of the other merging line is high. The prediction interval estimated by the proposed model covered the actual travel time at larger probability than the previous model.

View full abstract

In this study, we conducted field surveys at shared use sidewalks and quantified the cyclist's stress caused by road structures and traffic situations by using Lorentz Plot which is determined by heart rate variability, in order to discuss the evaluation for arterial road from the viewpoint of bicyclists. In addition, we did multiple linear regression analyses to clarify the factors of cyclist's stress on sidewalks and streets, separately. As the result, regardless of the position of the cyclists, both the numbers of passing intersec-tion and road width have an impact on the users' stress and each of them has differing degree of impacts. And we defined the stress-level point which is regarded as a QOS index, estimated the object road sec-tions by the development model and examined the effect of road structures improvement by sensitivity analyses. On the other hand, we collected the subjective assessment of bicyclists for the geometries and environments on both sidewalks and streets at arterial road through questionnaire and analyzed the rela-tionship between users' evaluation and road situation by the multiple regression models. Furthermore, by comparing both influence factors of objective evaluation which is based on the stress index and those of subjective assessment by questionnaire, we clarified the common factors for users' evaluation and sum-marized the key external factors for the evaluation of arterial road from the viewpoint of bicyclists.

View full abstract

This study focuses on how to mitigate the delay caused by the special features of runway operations of Haneda airport which is the most congested airport in Japan. The special features are “segregated use of runways by the flight directions” and “the interdependency of departure and arrival operation that results in the trade-off relationship between the capacity of departure and arrival”. First, the impact of segregated use of runways on delay are analyzed by the simulation method. Lastly, the method that optimize the capacity of departure and arrival in each time for minimizing delay are developed. The results shows that the segregated use of runways can cause the significant increase of the delay, and the optimization method can reduce the total delay.

View full abstract

This paper proposes an approach to model the gap choice behavior of merging vehicles under various traffic flow conditions at urban expressway merging sections in Nagoya, Japan. The gap choice is classified into three patterns denoted direct, yield and chase merging. Empirical analysis shows that mainline traffic conditions significantly affect the proportion of gap choice. In addition, yield and chase choices result in further merging position compared to direct one. This fact is necessary to be considered in order to design the acceleration lane to meet driver behavior under relevant operational traffic flow conditions. TTC is adopted as an index to determine the threshold of choosing a merging pattern. The results show that the thresholds of choosing direct/yield or chase, continue to chase or not and direct or yield are 4.3, 3.2 and 5.4 seconds, respectively. The gap choice behavior is modeled by applying binary logit model. The results reveal that relative speed and space gap, traffic conditions, acceleration lane length, and remaining distance significantly affect the gap choice behavior of merging drivers.

View full abstract

Asian developing countries are currently undergoing motorization and introduction of public transport. The objective of this study is to analyze people's car consciousnesses as well as to examine the relationship between their socio-economic characteristics and the consciousness. For this purpose, how people access to shopping mall in Metro Manila is selected as a case study. In Metro Manila, railway development is ongoing, however, the number of automobile has still been growing. Most shopping malls located in the city center and some are provided with public transport terminals for their customers for easy access without their cars. It is worthy to analyze people's mode choice decision making to access the malls.
A questionnaire survey for mall customers was conducted to ask their consciousness and mode choice selections. As the result of discrete choice modeling, a consciousness of “rational mobility” has influence on mode choice intentions, however, unlike non-car owners and low-income car owners, this consciousness appears only in high-income car owners. When the poor people have car, they would become car dependent.
Through scenario analysis, the trip attraction to the mall was examined. If the new car owners turn their consciousnesses toward the rational mobility, modal share of car would be reduced significantly. When more public transport is provided, the consciousnesses of people who would own car in the future are important to encourage modal shift in this city.

View full abstract