This research focuses on the world trends of road transportation policy, and technology related with ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems). The study includes not only technical R&D and political aspects, but also business conditions of ITS in U.S, Europe and Japan. On technical issues, wireless communication technology and digital map database are analyzed as technical platform of ITS. On political issues for safety, efficiency and environment, the official goals and political programs that are expressed by U.S, EU and Japanese government are compared. On the examples of major R&D projects, VII (Vehicle Infrastructure Integration) in U.S, CVIS (Cooperative Vehicle Infrastructure System) in Europe and Smartway in Japan are noted and the future direction of each R&D project is predicted.

Quantitative evaluation models of light rail services for average passenger density and travel time are developed through physical modeling of passenger’s seat-taking behaviors and boarding and alighting behaviors. The parameters of comfort and accessibility evaluation models have been identified from in-vehicle behavior observation at light rail vehicles in commercial operation and experiments at depot of Kumamoto municipal transport and full-scale mockup at the University of Tokyo. The developed models have enabled smoother comparison of service improvement scenarios of abolishing steps at passenger doorways and door usage methods to enhance passenger’s comfort and line operation speed with easily available data by operators.

Japanese international airline routes deregulation “Asia open sky” will promote to start direct flights between airports in Japan and the major airports in Asia. They increase not only gross regional domestic products (GRDP) around these airports but carbon emission. This paper estimated these increases with special econometrics model (SAR model). Such routes between the hub airports in oversea and the local airports in Japan increase GRDP of East and Southeast Asia 0.006% higher. That spills the increase of GRDP over regions near by these airports. The value of carbon emission impacts is quite smaller.

In the express bus service in Japan, operators in each area individually have provided service so far. However, recently, operators in Kyushu area try to make networking on express bus services, such as integration of reservation system and introduction of common fare and connected services. In this essay, we analyze this networking example in Kyushu and we propose some policies to develop express bus markets and to improve user benefit and convenience of express bus.