It can be said that modern times was a process in which the existed equilibrium in the management system of social infrastructure facilities was collapsed, and a new equilibrium was gradually formed while seeking cooperations. The water system in the Gi-Toh area had been flexibly formed for about 20 years, from river improvement to land improvement projects, and the construction of modern sewerage systems based on them. In the process of forming these series of systems, engineers often presented a vision that transcended the existed field of view, which was believed technically possible. The plan perfectly drawn to completion was denied at the beginning, and the feasibility was guaranteed by the method of making a plan that allowed correction and expansion. It can be said that the actual system had been flexibly constructed while keeping the same field of perspective. And although the division of duties of each organization had been clarified in modern times, there was a system supported by a human network that enabled collaboration while sharing this huge project.

This paper discusses the value of infrastructures that support efficient urban logistics, from the perspective of the consumers convenience for shopping and inventory management of firms. First, from the perspective of inventory management, I explain that infrastructures that support urban logistics have a close relation with the location of stores and distribution centers of retailers as well as the consumers’ convenience. Then, I discuss that the investment in infrastructures that improve the efficiency of urban logistics can prompt the investment in distribution centers in the suburbs and increase the number of stores in the city, thereby improving the consumers convenience for shopping.

This paper develops a methodology to estimate inter-regional trade barrier based on the theoretical foundation of multi-regional trade model and empirically estimates Japanese inter-regional trade by sector. We apply the calibration technique of the computable general equilibrium to the actual multi-regional Input-Output table of Japan. Inter-regional trade barrier is the unknown parameter and the calibration process yields the parameters which can reproduce the benchmark equilibrium state. We furthermore discuss the relationship between the past transport investment project and the historical shift of the trade barrier.

To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy should be promoted. This study investigated the possibility of zero-emission city in Tsukuba City in Ibaraki Prefecture by introducing a large amount of photovoltaics (PVs) as power source, and controlling of charging and discharging of EVs. As a result, we found that the cost became twice as compared with current grid system if all energy was supplied by PV generation only; therefore, the way of reducing the cost is important for achieving zero-emission city. We also found that it was possible to keep the similar level of the cost by allowing the purchase of the carbon neutral grid power. In addition, the result indicated that lowering PV installation and power purchasing cost reductions were important to achieve zero-emission city.

Economic researches about PFI have implications for both policy and practice. Particularly in Japan, the number of PFI projects has been increasing in recent years, and the importance of economic researches focus on PFI have been growing. The purpose of this paper is identifying the issues and implications of economic researches about Japanese PFI projects. We find that (1) the theoretical researches have developed on the basis of contract theory and have obtained results that are consistent with previous researches in other countries, and (2) the empirical researches have used data on PFI projects in Japan to auction theory and contract theory, and have obtained results that support the points made in these theories. On the other hand, empirical studies are limited in their analysis due to data constraints, and challenges remain for the further development.

Various types of disasters frequently occur in Japan. Local governments’ homepages display hazard maps depicting inundation areas and landslides due to heavy rain or seismic intensity by an earthquake. However, these efforts do not support quantitative assessments of impassability of vehicles due to broken houses, collapsed roadside telephone poles, etc. If an area cannot be reached after a disaster due to impassive roads, the refuge process, effective sheltering, etc. are negatively affected. Hence, a measure to determine the priority of road restoration can aid in disaster planning and prioritizing road restorations. This study proposes the rate of possibility for impassive vehicles to predict the impact of an earthquake by seismic intensity. A fragile evaluation of a densely populated area with wooden houses in Neyagawa City, Osaka is performed. The evaluation index should identify better items for disaster prevention planning that is unique to an area. Specifically, the possibility of impassive vehicles by the seismic intensity is defined as an index of road width, arrangement of wooden and non-wooden buildings, and the collapsed probability of a wooden building and a non-wooden building at seismic intensities of 6+ and 7. As an example, In the Kori district, which is a densely populated area with wooden houses, the possibility of 80% impassive vehicles is calculated by the seismic intensity. For a seismic intensity 6+, the rate of possibility of 80% impassive vehicles is 25.8% in terms of road length, but increases to 60.8% for a seismic intensity 7. By visualizing the vulnerable parts of the district, residents in a target district can learn area-specific disaster prevention awareness. With using a uniform perspective, we can evaluate the seismic resistance of buildings along the road must be enhanced, building layouts reviewed, and roadside utility poles removed to reduce the possibility of impassive vehicles.

After disasters happen, local governments investigate damage level of buildings and issue damage certificates to that victims. Because the damage certificate is used to determine contents of the victims’ support, local governments must issue the damage certificate rapidly and accurately. However, in the past earthquake disasters, the work of building damage investigation took a lot of time and hindered the victims’ support. Additionally, in the roof investigation of the current building damage investigation, investigators cannot look at the whole part of the roofs and calculate damage rate accurately. From this background, we developed automatic method to calculate damage rate of roof using image recognition from aero photo images so that building damage investigation can be more accurate and rapid. Finally, we asked a staff in disaster management division to evaluate estimation result of this model and confirmed the effectiveness. As a result, 80% of roof data in this estimation were equal to or more accurate than a investigator checking from ground. In the future, we need the system usage to ensure responsibility.

In this study, we conducted a two-stage questionnaire survey targeting local government roads, in municipalities nationwide. From the survey results, we considered three road user cooperation measures and points to keep in mind as support measures in terms of budget, technology, and system, after organizing the current status and issues of road maintenance. First, the effectiveness of road user cooperation was suggested that for understanding the current status of unplanned repairs and ad hoc maintenance, preparing inspection manuals, early detection of road damage, and collecting information which cannot be found by staff alone. Second, as measures for cooperation with road users, it was understood that it is important to formulate a patrol inspection plan, clarify information to supplement the shortage of workers, and raise awareness for utilizing new technologies. Finally, the survey results suggested the importance of providing a place for exchange and involvement in worker development that contributes to ensuring the reliability of information from road users, as well as points to keep in mind when setting the degree of involvement of road users.

Considering local currency transactions as a two-sided market between consumers and merchants, this study develops an interaction model consisting consumers’ exchange behavior and merchants’ entry behavior. The model explicitly deals with inter-market and intra-market interactions between consumers and merchants. The interaction effects are quantified through the empirical analysis using stated preference data collected from four cities in Hiroshima prefecture. The results of the empirical analysis showed that there are significant positive inter-market and intra-market interactions. We also found that the intensity of consumers’ intra-market interaction depends on the degree of consumers’ place attachment. As a result of a simulation to evaluate the efficiency of the local currency project, it is suggested that the platformer can greatly improve the efficiency of the local currency project by providing a certain amount of subsidy to the merchants.

This study examines the causal impact of highways on the Japanese economy, with a focus on quantifying the impact on the industrial sector. The highway network has expanded remarkably in Japan after the Second World War. The understanding of the effect of the highway investments so far is really helpful for planning the project of the highway construction in the future. Following Donaldson and Hornbeck (2016), we formulate the general equilibrium trade model and theoretically derive the relationship between “market access” and land value. We estimate the impact of market access and agglomeration economies on land values, using the data about land values in 222 Urban Employment Area (UEA). To deal with the identification issues caused by reverse causality or omitted variables, we rely on an instrumental variable (IV) approach. The results show that the land values are affected strongly by market access and population density.

The authors are interested in evaluating the connectivity of road networks in the event of a disaster such as a large-scale earthquake. It is impossible to predict the detailed damages caused by a large-scale earthquake in advance. In addition, there are various causes of road closure. This indicates that it is difficult to evaluate the connectivity using detailed data of damages. In this article, as an alternative, the authors propose a new method to the connectivity evaluation between two nodes based on the topology and geometry of a network. A network is firstly approximated as a merger of two independent tree structures from the two nodes assessed by Dijkstra’s method. The approximated network possesses a certain monotonicity. Then, a number of paths between the two nodes are calculated by the power of the adjacency matrix. A demonstrative example for the applicability of the proposed method is also presented.

In this study, we measured the disaster deterrence effect by improving the green infrastructure function by forest management in order to control the risk of sediment-related disasters and flood disasters caused by heavy rains that have become severe in recent years. Specifically, we measured the effect of preventing surface erosion and the effect of preventing surface collapse due to forest management in the forest land that is currently abandoned. The former calculated the change in the amount of eroded sediment depending on the presence or absence of forest management by the USLE method, and the latter calculated the change in the slope safety factor obtained from the action of the tree root system to anchor the surface soil to the slope. As a result, it was shown that if forest management such as thinning is carried out appropriately, the frequency of surface collapse will decrease and the amount of eroded sediment will be reduced by an average of 330,000 tons per year. It was also shown that monetary valuation of them using alternative methods would result in a benefit of approximately 7.3 billion yen.

We have evaluated the seasonal variation of inter-city travel demand for the optimal combination of intercity transportation modes. Here, we formulate the problem of computing the optimal combination of transportation modes that incorporates seasonal variations as a mixed-integer linear programming problem. The numerical analysis of the model revealed the effect of seasonal variations on the optimal combination of transportation modes. As a result, the seasonal variation may change the optimal combination. In addition, the coexistence of competing transportation modes, air, and rail, can be optimal in situations with significant seasonal variations, even in the absence of traveler heterogeneity. These results indicate that seasonal variation in demand can be an essential factor in long-distance passenger transportation network design.

It has been reported that relief supplies did not reach the victims in a timely manner in many disasters. Although various solutions to this problem have been studied and implemented, it is still a problem. In this study, we focused on three earthquakes: the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake, and reviewed the problems pointed out in each disaster and the changes in their solutions. As a result, we found that many of the same problems have been point-ed out since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. To solve them, it is necessary to incorporate the per-spective of business practices in normal distribution, which has not been taken into consideration in hu-manitarian logistics, and to clarify who is responsible for each.

Feasibility and efficiency are investigated on push-mode relief supplies to the refugees in Nagoya planned by the government at Nankai Trough earthquake. Based on the assumptions on the loading/unloading time, the time needed for delivery of relief supplies is examined considering the usages and the combinations of logistic depots within area (secondary depots). The results suggest that the delivery time can be reduced by aggregating the transport from the primary depots to the secondary depots, and becomes closer to the case skipping the secondary depots. Also, random breakdowns of the road network by the earthquake are represented in the simulation, and it is found that the priority opening of core road network within area can increase the reachability to the refugees.

Natural disasters such as concentrated heavy rains and earthquakes frequently occur in Japan. Therefore, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism revised the Law Concerning the Location Normalization Plan in February 2020. New regulation related to location restraint and relocation promotion in disaster hazardous area is added. Therefore, it should be useful to analyze the structure of consciousness of residents who live in hazardous area concerning continuity of residence for each type of disaster hazard area in order to plan measures such as relocation promotion and disaster countermeasures. As a result of the analysis, it was clarified that the territorial connection is the most influential on the continuity of living in the sediment disaster warning area and the flood inundation area. On the other hand, quality of life is most influential in the tsunami inundation area.

When aftershock of the Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake struck on February 21, 2019, there were a flood of people waiting for the restoration of public transportation in central Sapporo, including Sapporo Station. Estimating the number of people who have difficulty returning home, including the disaster scenario in winter, considering the difference in the timing of the disaster is indispensable for building an emergency evacuation system. Many existing studies on the estimation of the number of people who have difficulty returning home have been reported using the national census and the person trip survey (hereinafter referred to as the PT survey). However, considering the population staying at each time and from a distance, no analysis was found for each mesh unit by means of returning home or activity purpose. Therefore, in this study, we estimated the number of people who have difficulty returning home and visualized the spatial distribution of the number of people who have difficulty returning home. By using PT surveys, mobile phone location information data (mobile spatial statistics), and each evacuation center and area in Sapporo City.

In recent years, heavy rain disasters have caused human damage due to various factors. Therefore, it is still necessary to implement the issues related to the promotion of residents evacuation. In this study, we constructed a resident evacuation choice behavior model using a machine learning model and analyzed the factors of resident evacuation choice behavior using explainable machine learning model. Specifically, PI analysis and PD analysis of the XAI method were performed on the survey data of Gifu prefecture and western Japan during the heavy rain in July 2018 and eastern Japan of typhoon No. 19 in 2019. As a result, we clarified the factors that influence evacuation / non-evacuation and choice of evacuation site.

As water supply infrastructures are aging, the maintenance and management of them are becoming serious issues, especially for small-scale water systems in depopulated areas where the population is declining and aging. At present, it is assumed that the issues will be solved by expanding the centralized water supply system, which is the water network in urban areas, for depopulated areas. However, the solution has a problem such as spending huge time and cost. On the other hand, it is made possible to provide water by independent and distributed small water supply systems through being developed new technology. In this paper, we carried out the cost burden analysis to introduce each water supply system by estimating water demand based on the results of population forecasting, and clarified which is more efficient. As a result, we showed that the centralized system impose a huge cost to construct pipeline network, and clarified the adoptable setting cost of independent and distributed small water supply system for assuming the same cost burden as the current water supply in urban area.

This paper aims to estimate the effect of time when heavy-rain disaster is imminent on evacuation behaviour with a framework of causal inference in statistics. In details, distinguishing evacuation from the risky area from shelter-in-place in evacuation behavior during a heavy-rain event, this paper verified the difference of evacuation behaviour such as evacuation site and evacuation transportation mode. As results, it was cleared that people were likely to evacuate from the risky area by car in daytime. In addition, it was shown that availability of “shelter-in-place” and “evacuation by car” options affected evacuation behaviors; in particular, people in a one-story house were likely to evacuate from the risky area even at the time be-tween 18:00-24:00.

In recent years, there have been a lot of major political debates, but there has been no large “political movement” in Japan, which is a remarkable characteristic compared to other developed countries. This seems to be not only a problem of “political apathy” but also a problem of “aversion” that Japanese people have toward politics, but so far there has been insufficient academic research on this aversion to politics. In this study, we hypothesized that Japanese people have a sense of fear and contempt toward politics, and that this sense is affected by the “tendency to avoid confrontation”, “vulgarity of mass” and “non-nihil-istness”. As a result, it was suggested that the degree of political fear and contempt would be higher in people with higher levels of “tendency to avoid confrontation”, “self-enclosedness” and “arrogance” which are subfactors of “vulgarity of mass”. In addition, the higher the level of “non-nihilistness”, the lower the level of “political fear and contempt”.

MasRAC which is a model system capable of comprehensively evaluating effects brought about by improvement of traffic infrastructure was improved in order to enable integrated future prediction on traffic infrastructure investment and tax rate fluctuation, and to construct a model capable of more accurate tax revenue evaluation. In order to make the tax rate exogenously operable, three main taxes of consumption tax, corporation tax, and income tax were endogenously generated, and their propagation route to economy and finance was constructed. And, using the constructed model, the behavior of main variable in exogenous manipulation of consumption tax rate and corporation tax rate was confirmed, and the effect on the consumption was examined. As a result, it was suggested that the reduction of the consumption tax strongly promoted the increase of consumption, and the increase of the corporation tax was inferior to the consumption tax, but it might affect the increase of consumption.

Productivity of building construction substantially affects the urban structure and the quality of the residential environment. However, the building productivity and the impact of building height on construction cost are not sufficiently investigated. This study aims to analyze the effect of building height on building floor productivity consistent with urban economic models using data of building construction statistics in Japan. As a result, we found that the construction cost per floor area increases as higher the building height, while its increasing rate decreases to the height. We applied the estimated cost function to the developer model to estimate the input capital cost and land rent by prefecture, and we found this model represents these indices adequately. We also compared the proposed model and models in the literature and examined its features in construction cost estimation.

Travel-related websites are considered an important part of tourism nowadays since they not only provide non-biased reviews of a destination or establishment for potential tourists, they are also used by tourism managers to understand the needs, wants and expectations of the market to further improve their offerings. However, only a number of researches have been conducted with regards to the latter. This research analyzes travelers’ comments and feedback about their Philippine trip to gauge the country’s performance as a tourism destination. A total of 1,717 travel reviews and blogs were gathered from three travel-related websites and analyzed using machine learning techniques such as Sentiment Analysis, Word2Vec Analysis, and Cluster Analysis. The findings revealed that reviews written about the Philippines are mostly positive, but it also points out the tourism components that tourists did not like and must be improved. Furthermore, proposed applications of the Word2Vec output for tourism promotion and development are presented and implications of the research findings in Philippine tourism are discussed.

The high-quality public spaces have a good influence on regional development and invite diverse activities. This paper has explored how realized the high-quality public spaces “Waterplein Benthemplein” in Rotterdam city through the document investigation and the interview survey. By focusing on the process of realizing “Waterplein Benthemplein”, this paper highlights the method of consensus building and implementation system. In the conclusion, three points were described as a research result. Firstly, a project team of cooperation between departments was established in Rotterdam city, and worked all of the phases: planning, design, and construction. Secondly, through the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, Rotterdam city discuss the ideas by designers in the private sector, and promoted public-private partnerships with challenging concepts and designs. Thirdly, Rotterdam city and designers held three times workshop for designing with neighbors. Through the workshop, they completed the design where have the functions: inviting the diversity activities and storage of rainwater.

The Japan Tourism Agency has conducted “Overnight Travel Statistics Survey” since 2007. This survey covers the information such as the number of guests and their nationality, number of rooms, and the capacities of the facilities. This survey data is particularly valuable as it has been conducted during the period of rapid growth of in-bound tourists in recent years. We geocoded hotels’ (i.e., respondents’) addresses and generated “master data” which connects each hotel with the spatial information of the cubic mesh (about 1 km square). The data allows for various types of analyses with high spatial resolution include multivariate analyses. This paper covers various analyses to demonstrate the potential of the master data, which include the trend in the accommodation demand, the impacts of newly opened Hokuriku Shinkansen by type of hotel, and the changes in the center of gravity of tourists’ stays in Japan. We also use the data for disequilibrium analysis of demand and supply of hotels.

Osaka Hokko Co. Ltd. whose estate was located on the northern side of Osaka Port was established in 1919. This study aims to clarify the estate development plan of Osaka Hokko Co. Ltd. before 1934 and its backgrounds by analyzing the relationships between the drawings made by Yoshikazu Uchida, Osaka’s city plan, and some actual projects such as canal construction, bathing beach, and rent house. The results achieved in this study will be followed by two phases. Firstly, it is assumed that Sumitomo Family established the company along with Shima and Fujita families and others to develop the estate by a unified policy. In particular, rent house was targeted at the higher class than ordinary factory workers. By excavating the canal, it can be observed that they were trying to develop the estate into a factory district. Secondly, Yoshikazu Uchida embodied the Sumitomo Family’s development policy in his drawings. Moreover, specific similarities between Yoshikazu Uchida’s drawings and Osaka’s city plan have revealed that the latter plan reflected the former. In addition to this, the following personal relationships between the Osaka Hokko Corporation and the government were identified as the factors leading to this relationship. The representative of Sumitomo Family served in the extraordinary Investigative Committee at the Port and Harbor of Osaka City. As a result, the policy to develop the northern side of Osaka Port through public-private collaboration was already adopted by the Committee in 1913. Some influential figures in public administration were also involved in the estate development plan from the beginning. The above-mentioned facts suggest that the estate development plan contained the idea of public administration.

In recent years, local cities have experienced problems with declining economic power due to suburbanization and a reduction of urban functions. One approach to revitalizing local cities, local foods as tourism attractions, has recently attracted much attention. Using the causal model method, this research aimed to analyze the connection between a local foods event, the B-1 Grand Prix, and attracting tourists. Using Mobile Spatial Statistics information, we checked whether there was any change in the trend of the number of tourists one year before and after the gourmet event. As a result, the effect of gourmet food and the influence of other variables on the number of tourist arrivals are clarified.

The previous studies have indicated that attentional biases performed at an unintentional level could affect preferences. In this study, the hypothesis that unintentional attentional bias toward shop facade images affects preference judgments was formulated, and the hypothesis was verified based on a two-way forced preference judgment task. The results showed that the more unintentional attention is biased toward the shop facade image, the more likely participants judge the shop facade image that caused the attention bias as preferred. In particular, the attentional bias effect appeared in the presentation condition where the two shop facade images had the same kind of preference.

The purpose of this study is to present the utilization characteristics of “warehouse renovation” and promotion measures from the viewpoint of the legal system for revitalization of ports in Japan. This study was conducted a literature survey and a hearing survey on renovation warehouses at 16 ports where “warehouse renovation” was observed among the ports registered in “Minato Oasis” under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. As a result, it clarified below; (1) characteristics of utilization of renovation warehouse; the multifunctional, the integration function, and the function of contribution to local community, (2) issues of renovation warehouse; durability of building, continuity of utilization, (3) importance of gradual zone operation.

The purpose of this study is to show the knowledge of the method to develop the regional vision by applying the green infrastructure collaborated with local residents in the small watershed of urban area. In a study with local residents in the Nakahori River, Yokohama City, the following steps were performed: classification of subwatersheds and understanding of the flow direction of surface water, estimation of land use diversions and rainwater runoff and their changes, creation of an interest map that summarizes the location of sewerage systems, flood hazard maps, and citizens’ interests, and creation of a vision for the adoption of green infrastructure in the region and action points. As a result, it is considered that a) a visualization method to superimpose the water cycle and local issues at the scale of a local sub-watershed, b) environmental design of the sub-watershed through understanding the flow of surface water, and c) a verification process to set goals according to the interests of local residents, are important for the collaborative planning process of green infrastructure.

Regional revitalization has been promoted with a view to increasing “regional vitality” as one of its tasks, but the content of “regional vitality” has not been sufficiently examined. It was assumed that “regional vitality” was perceived by the residents and affects their psychological aspects. This study examined the attribute and effects of residents “subjective regional vitality (SRV)”, and the influence of going outdoors and media use on these factors. Five factors were extracted from analysis of the questionnaire data, which had an effect on SRV. SRV had Positive effects on psychological aspects such as place attachment and community consciousness. In the case of high media use, the regional image was ambiguous, and SRV was lower in local areas. The attribute and effects of SRV differed depending on the tendency to going outdoors out and media use.

After the 1933 Showa Sanriku Tsunami, comprehensive countermeasure was established by government and researchers and it has been pointed out that this guideline has some similarities with the approach taken after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The relocation of houses to higher ground, which was the most recommended comprehensive tsunami countermeasure, was implemented in many areas soon after the disaster, but other countermeasures were not implemented despite field surveys. This paper explores the budgeting process for upland relocation and other countermeasures, and shows that the budgeting for tsunami countermeasures emphasizes the consideration of the predisaster period, proof of effectiveness, and regional development.

In recent years, the concept of “third place”, which is regarded as a third place other than home and work, has become widespread. The need for third places was advocated in 1989 to reduce loneliness and lack of community. Although some existing studies have shown that having a third place is related to subjective well-being, the characteristics and means of transportation of people who have a third place and what kind of third place is related to subjective well-being are not clear. The purpose of this study was to clarify the characteristics of people who have a third place, and what kind of third place is related to subjective well-being. As a result, it was shown that those who are satisfied with their health, friend / family relationships, leisure time, and those who prefer to go out have a third place. Also, people with a third place visiting from the workplace have a high sense of subjective well-being.

In this study, the public service facilities are evaluated from both sides of efficiency and fairness. The purpose of this study is to find the appropriate direction for the allocation of administrative service facilities. The efficiency is evaluated by the total required time as the sum of the travel time to the facilities and the waiting time in the facilities. On the other hand, fairness is evaluated by two indexes, the maximum deviation of the required time and the Gini coefficient. As a result of applying it to the Tokushima City, it was clarified that the efficiency is low in the suburbs and the fairness can not measure the inequality only by the maximum deviation. As an negative effect of the abolition of one branch, the efficiency tends to decrease depending on the size of the branch. On the other hand, the abolition of branch offices with facilities in the vicinity does not significantly reduce fairness. The ranking of branch abolition differs between emphasis on efficiency and emphasis on fairness. It should be noted that the abolition of all branch offices around the center will be significantly reduced on both sides.

In this study, the authors focus on street characteristics around residences where actual walking activities take place, and analyze them together with the geographic environmental variables of the existing Walkability Index (WI). The authors aim to clarify the environmental factors that contribute to walking for specific purposes and the optimal analytical frameworks for the purposes. Thorough the classification of streets by focusing on cross-sectional configuration and roadside features, and the regression analysis for the amount of activity of daily-errands walking and leisure walking, the authors demonstrate that: (1) For daily-errands walking, street characteristics had a greater effect than existing WI. For leisure walking, parts of street characteristics were significant. Thus, combining street characteristics with each other or synthesizing WI with street characteristics may allow us to construct environmental variables with larger odds ratios. (2) For daily-errands walking, a single model using the median binarized walking activity can be used for analysis. On the other hand, for leisure walking, it is necessary to set up models separately for the presence or absence of walking and the amount of walking.

Many of the housing complexes developed around the 1970s in Japan are now experiencing aging and declining populations, and the quality of life is declining due to the withdrawal of retails and public services. These problems interact with are spiraled down each other and. In this study, the household-based microsimulation model that endogenizes the location of commercial facilities is developed and applied to a residential complex in Seto City, Aichi Prefecture for evaluating options of policy measures to resolve problem of the negative spiral and revitalize the residential area. As a result, it is shown that the measure to guide location of commercial facilities alone will not sustainable , but instead a combination of measures with transport and residential measures will increase sustainability.

This study focused on the personality of the elderly. In this study, personality refers to psychological factors are thought to hinder the elderly from participating in various activities. It is shown that the personality of these elderly people consists of six factors: “weakness in the sense of being involved with others,” “strength of resignation,” “lack of spontaneous action,” “ease of being influenced by others,” “strength of the sense of not relying on others,” and “strength of shyness”. It is also found that the traffic mode, such as cars and buses, have an effect on the personality of the elderly. And that personality reduces the frequency of hobby activities and community activities. In addition, it is shown that different policies and facility services should be considered for the elderly who have different personalities, if the participation of the elderly in activities are intended to be promoted. Also, it is important for others to accept their personalities and health conditions.

Ongoing urban planning forces us to take account of disaster risks and ordinary convenience as targets. However, some regions face trade-offs between these two targets due to various conditions such as topography or industrial structure. The problem was highlighted in damaged fishery villages after the Great East Japan Earthquake: fishers who work close to the sea relocated to higher area for safety; meanwhile, they had to accept the inconvenience of long commuting. This study developed an optimal residential area model for analyzing the trade-offs between safety from tsunamis and ordinary convenience, which will be able to support the consensus-building among stakeholders. The model consists of weighted multicriteria: the total tsunami risk, the total infrastructure maintenance cost, and the total traffic time for commuting with controlling optimal allocations of population, land use, and commuting trips. Here we optimize “Reduction Potential Achievement (RPA)”: it indicates how much the respective optimal value achieved against the value (reduced potential) that the three objectives were optimized alone as a baseline. We applied the model to Kuroshio, a tsunami-prone area along the Nankai Trough in Japan, and calculated for each 500-meter mesh. According to the results with various combination patterns of the control variables, the larger the number of variables, the more concentrated residential areas became. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis results that change the weight of each criterion revealed trade-offs in which the more the tsunami risk is weighted, the more the infrastructure maintenance and traffic costs increase.

In this paper, we illustrate the process by which French territorial authority have revived their city centers, previously dominated by cars, into bustling multimodal cities. This was achieved by decisively redistributing the road space, reorganizing the urban surface for the convenience of pedestrians, as well as developing public transportation. We highlight the importance of the social and technical background in enabling redistribution of the road space. French national legislation, that emphasized environmental protection and welfare, played an important role in making cities as “walkable” as possible. Local governments, the entities that implemented these policies, were major actors of this transformation. French citizens have adopted the new urban space structure, thanks to the construction of pedestrian and bicycle lanes, without disregarding the advantages of car-based mobility．This article concludes on the changes in the French way-of-life, as well as major social trends within the cities, that could inspire the future of urban space planning in Japan.

Typically, the parameters of land use models are stepwisely estimated and calibrated because of some practical difficulties, e.g., satisfying sign conditions. However, this estimation method lacks the reliability from the theoretical viewpoint as the parameters that should be estimated simultaneously are separately estimated one by one. This study is the first attempt to mitigate this problem. We aim to introduce a Bayesian approach into the estimation of land use models. Specifically, we conduct a whole procedure of an econometric analysis using land use models; for a given land use model, we simultaneously estimate their parameters including the variable selection, confirm the reproducibility of the data, and conduct the counterfactual experiment. Both the estimation result and its comparison with the result by the conventional method suggested the superiority of Bayesian approach as well as its potential for expansion.

In recent years, the redevelopment and use of waterfront as part of urban planning has become more and more active all over the country. Some cases in which urban rivers are used for urban planning by occupying land in the waterfront is increasing. On the other hand, in the past, the use of waterfront in Japan was more diverse and on a daily basis than today. This research focused on the Kanda and Nihonbashi rivers, which had been used for various waterfront purpose since Edo period, to get suggestion for sustainable waterfront use. As a result, this research shed light on the historical transition in the use of waterfront changes and the factors. In addition, there are features in use of waterfront, the changes and the factors by each region along the rivers.

While walking is encouraged according to increasing attention to public health, the walking environment around neighborhood places is not always good, particularly in car-dependent cities. On the other hand, activity places also provide walking opportunities in various locations, which expand the scope of walking environments in daily life. For instance, walking for health is promoted even in a large shopping mall, called mall-walking, as one of the most popular activity places in car-dependent cities. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to explore the relationship of the walking environment and walking willingness in neighborhood places and activity places, the mall. First, a questionnaire survey was carried out to explore satisfaction of mall visitors with the walking environments of their neighborhood places and a shopping mall along with their walking willingness. Then, it analyzed the effect of the walking environment on the walking willingness. The results showed that poor walking environment in neighborhood places can increase walking willingness in the mall as an activity place.

In this study, we conducted an ambulance probe survey and a road surface condition survey on long-distance ambulance transport routes in Hokkaido, and analyzed the effect of road surface conditions on the ambulance driving speed using a statistical model. Furthermore, using the above models, the transportation time was estimated for each pavement maintenance scenario. First, it was clarified that not only the road structure but also road surface damage such as crack ratio, IRI, and number of low-temperature cracks affect the driving speed reduction. Next, it was shown that the transportation time was reduced by about 2 minutes in the scenario of simple repair of a section with one or more low-temperature cracks in 100 m. Finally, we compared these scenarios and proposed pavement management that contributes to reducing the transportation time of ambulance.

This study proposes a traffic state estimation method that combines probe trajectory data and vehicle detectors. On the Metropolitan Expressway, vehicle detectors are densely placed so that traffic flow can be monitored in detail. However, maintaining all vehicle detectors is a problem in terms of cost. On the other hand, a large amount of probe data has been acquired and its application is being explored. In the future, it is desirable to reduce and streamline the current number of vehicle detectors by making use of probe data. Therefore, this study proposes a method for traffic condition estimation using variational theory (VT), as-suming that the vehicle detectors have been thinned out. As a result of model verification, it is confirmed that the VT can guarantee the same level of accuracy as the current vehicle detectors by calibrating the fundamental diagram (FD) from the viewpoint of traffic control.

When evaluating the hustle and bustle of the central city area, the most used data in Japan is “pedestrian traffic”. In this study, we focused on a laser range scanner as a device for measuring pedestrian traffic, and analyzed the basic measurement performance of the laser range scanner such as the measurable distance. Then, we actually measured in the central city area and evaluated the influence of road width and pedestrian traffic on the measurement by the laser range scanner. Furthermore, the measurement results were compared with the conventional manual measurement results and video measurement results. As a result, it became clear that under certain conditions, the measurement by the laser range scanner can be measured with almost the same accuracy as the manual measurement.

The increase in tourism has led to the notion of “over-tourism” and furthermore causes dis-satisfaction of travellers with their tourism experience. Not least due to the economic significance of tourism addressing these issues is important. A large number of tourism studies are based on survey analysis. On the other hand, an increasing number of studies are utilizing various “big data” sets in recent years. In particular mobile phone data and GPS tracking data are becoming available. Considering this, we estimate the number of tourists using GPS traces in different areas of Kyoto city by regression analysis and hierarchical linear models (HLM). The GPS data are limited and we supplement these with access cost information. The data are verified with aggregate spatial information, “mesh population”, obtained from a mobile phone operator. We obtain satisfactory results from the regression analysis and further improved results from HLM. We show that with at least 4500 GPS traces the estimated tourist variance reduces significantly. We find that GPS traces correspond to mesh population well when we consider the person who visit tourist areas more than 0.3 per day as tourists. We suggest this provides a guideline for studies aiming to use GPS traces for population estimation. We also show that the GPS data can capture monthly differences in tourism patterns. We also find that other data than GPS data like travel cost or POIs can adjust the differences between distributions of mesh population and GPS data.

This paper presents the findings of a low-carbon assessment of micro electric vehicles (MEVs) from the viewpoint of their use patterns. The evaluation is based on the results of a series of empirical studies conducted in the cities of Mimasaka and Akaiwa in Okayama Prefecture, which were carried out by lending MEVs to a total of 34 people for a period of one month. Using the behavioural data collected from the studies, this paper 1) estimates CO₂ emissions associated with the implementation of MEVs and 2) verifies the growth and reduction potential of CO₂ emissions based on the change in use patterns of users. Our calculations found that MEVs possess a higher potential in reducing environmental load in comparison with gasoline vehicles (GVs) whilst in motion. Furthermore, 79% of the users displayed use patterns inclined to reducing CO₂ emissions during the empirical study period. On the other hand, 18% exhibited patterns that are likely to result in increasing CO₂ emissions such as new travel behaviour and mode change from means of transport that do not release CO₂ (walking and bicycles) to MEVs.

This research focuses on the measures to reduce passing traffic other than the methods of restricting traffic itself, analyzes the characteristics of the road and traffic conditions related to passing traffic, shows countermeasures that are considered to be effective. In the study, ETC2.0 probe data analysis of travel time, route length, and travel speed, which were considered to have a large effect on the occurrence of passing traffic, in multiple areas, revealed that the area classifications are “cases that there is no time advantage in passing through the area”, “cases that passing through the area is time-dominant but not a shortcut”, “cases that passing through the area is time-dominant and shortcut but the speed is low”, “cases that passing through the area is time-dominant, short-cut, and fast”, and showed the characteristics and the effective countermeasures for each classification.

Physical activities associated with mobility are assumed to have a reciprocal relationship with the health condition. With the social momentum, including the extension of healthy life expectancy, health would be an essential element in future transportation planning. In this study, we summarize the existing studies on the relationship between mobility and health in Japan from the viewpoint of health-related indicators, mobility-related indicators, and their combinations. We clarified that both mobility- and health-related indicators could be divided into those commonly adopted by multiple studies and those independently adopted. In addition, while indicators related to awareness and intentions and manifest mobility and health status may be necessary, there are issues in applying standardized measurement methods.