Station fronts in metropolises are not only the connection nodes on the road and railway transportation networks but also urban open spaces used by many people. However their qualities are not satisfactory because of chronic traffic congestion, lack of amenities in public spaces, etc. Upgrading of these station plazas is important for improving people's safety, amenity, convenience as well as the quality of their life.

Although these problems can be intuitively recognized, it has not been clarified yet, how many refinements and further developments are needed, or how they can be achieved practically. In this paper, firstly, we summarize the history of station plaza development in Tokyo metropolitan area, and clarify its role and problems. Secondly, the required development volume of station plaza is calculated from the traffic demand and current facilities level. Later, recent progress of technology and legal and administrative systems is explained, and effective development plans of specific stations are discussed considering those progresses. Finally, the problems in development process are summarized and future directions of development system are discussed.

International air transport has been basically governed by the restrictive bilateral air service agreements (ASA) since the end of World War II, but more liberalized air agreements, such as the US open skies agreement, a single unified market in Europe and the APEC multilateral agreement have been progressed in the last decade. However, the form and the level of liberalization vary among these liberalized ASA. This paper examines the background and the contents of these ASA in detail and makes an attempt to relate them with competitiveness of air carriers and free trade agreement. The comparative analysis of these ASA, with a particular focus on the level of liberalization, suggests that the governing principle for the chosen level of liberalization is to make the ASA in the favor of flag carriers. The paper proposes that the future direction of Japanese and Asian ASA should follow the international trend, and also discusses its necessity and feasibility.

Projects of grade-separated intersection have been implemented to contribute to regenerating major cities, observing the agreements between Ministry of Construction and Ministry of Transport (1969). But the evaluation systems have some issues. Effects by taking off level crossings like time-savings are evaluated quantitatively, but effects concerning railway passengers and railway companies are neglected. Besides Environments, reconnection of areas separated by railways, unique effects of grade-separated intersection, are not reflected in the evaluation items. This study develops comprehensive evaluation systems which can be considered to be logical and enhance the transparency of evaluation processes. Then it verifies practical effectiveness of a case-study, a project of JR line in Sendai-city.

It is said that the privatization of the Japanese National Railway is a success since the management, productivity, and service have improved. However, as expected, the gap of both management and productivity tends to widen between the larger main-island JRs and the smaller three-island JRs. This paper will estimate the cost structure of the six JRs after the privatization. The main points we will make are as follows：first, the economies of density exist in both the incumbent railway service and the Shinkansen service；second, there is no conclusive evidence to show that the economies of scope exist between them ; third, the cost gap between the main-island JRs and the three-island JRs is large；and fourth, the cost gaps within them are also large.

The objective of this study is to investigate issues and necessary measures for introducing a flexible fare system into urban railways in Japan. Most important issue is how to improve the user benefit and company's profit by introducing this fare system, for example family discount fare, weekend fare and so on. The case of London underground, which is considered to be a pioneer in adopting such a system, is reviewed in this study in order to get useful insights for applying such system to Japanese urban railways. The case study demonstrated that the flexible fare system is effective in improving user's benefit and social benefit but it may result in a decrease in company's profit. This study therefore make a suggestion to introduce the flexible fare system in Japan together with some others support measures to provide incentives to operator, such as provision of public subsidy based on social benefit, not to cause any loss in company's profit.