Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508.

Why Have Travel Surveys of Urban Railway Successfully Incorporated Public and Private Participations in Metropolitan Area?

Hironori KATO a, Masashi KUBOTA b, Michihiro KOBAYASHI c, Toshimitsu NOJI d, Tetsuro HYODO e a Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-8656, ; E-mail: [email protected] b JMA Research Institute Inc., Tokyo, 105-0011, Japan; E-mail: [email protected] c Same as the second author; E-mail: [email protected] d Same as the second author; E-mail: [email protected] e Department of Logistics and Information Engineering, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Tokyo, 135-8533, Japan; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: In this paper, the critical factors affecting a successful cooperative travel survey system for urban public transit are analyzed by means of a case study of Tokyo, Japan. To this end, both public and private entities participate in developing an integrated travel database. This study reviews the Metropolitan Transport Census, which is a large-scale travel survey in three metropolitan areas of Japan, mainly covering travel supply and demand of urban railway services. This survey has a cooperative framework in which the government, private/public railway companies, and transportation academics/experts jointly design the survey, collect data, and process and analyze the data. The survey database also contributes to the development of a series of policy management processes, including the development of long-term urban railway development masterplans with dynamic interactions between the government and the railway companies. The advantages and disadvantages of participating in the integrated survey for both the government and the private/public railway companies are also examined. The results reveal that a potential reason for the success of the survey system is the win-win situation in which the vision of public transit planning presented by the government is in line with the business strategies of the private railway companies. This alignment of goals is highly reliant on a mechanism of interactive communication among the stakeholders. This is achieved through a cooperative policy management process in which both the government and the railway companies are directly or indirectly governed by third parties, including taxpayers, investors, and customers.

Keywords: Urban Railway, Travel Survey, Cooperative Framework, Private Participation

1. INTRODUCTION

The public transit market has recently employed a more complex structure than the traditional public-based system. For example, transit operations have become privatized and public–private partnership arrangements have been introduced into regional public transit

 Corresponding author. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0).

493 Kato, H. et al. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508. systems. Under the deregulating policy in the EU (Arbolino et al., 2018; Perennes, 2017; Crozet, 2016), for instance, multiple rail operators could enter a regional rail market and share the same routes under a vertical separation scheme of operation and infrastructure ownership, in which many stakeholders jointly run businesses and/or compete against each other. Public transit planning with the participation of multiple stakeholders could have difficulties in areas such as contract schemes, service management strategies, and adequate regulatory frameworks (Ceder, 2015). One of these could be integrated data collection for public transit planning. A travel survey is one of most essential components in transportation planning. Through this survey, current problems in the transportation network/market are identified, travel demand models are developed, transportation projects are assessed, and transportation policy and strategies are proposed (Meyer and Miller, 2001). Various types of travel surveys, such as origin–destination (OD) surveys, household surveys, and intercept surveys are typically implemented to collect data on aggregated traffic volume and individual trips, including trip frequency, origin/destination, and travel mode (Ortúzar and Willumsen, 2002). In public transit planning, more specific travel demand and/or supply data may be required for efficient operation, such as travel routes/stations chosen by passengers, types of tickets used by passengers, arrival/departure times to/from stations, service frequency and quality, and stops/station facilities. Generally, public authorities that supervise public transit services have a stronger motivation to understand travel demand and supply in an entire public transit network; however, private stakeholders in the public transit market may have a low incentive to share the information with others because it could give unnecessary information to their regulators and/or competitors. Additionally, each private company tends to be concerned with its own transit service/network and thus has fewer concerns with intermodal transportation services in cooperation with other private companies, which could possibly lead to insufficient quality of connections and/or coordination between different services/networks. Therefore, an integrated travel survey in which both public and private stakeholders effectively participate may be one of the challenges for successful public transit planning in metropolitan areas. How can we develop an integrated travel survey system for public transit planning under multiple stakeholder participation? The Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA) is a transit-oriented megacity in which the urban railway service is highly developed and the modal share of railway accounts for approximately 30% (Abe and Kato, 2017). One unique characteristic of the urban railway market in the TMA is that railway services are operated by over 30 private companies (Kato, 2014). Most of the private companies own the rail facilities and operate the service using their own facilities in a regionally monopolistic market. One of the unique approaches for integrating the urban rail market in the TMA is a masterplan system organized by the national government (Abe and Kato, 2017). The government has a long history of developing 10- to 15-year masterplans to guide the urban rail network development under long-term planning strategies together with private companies in the TMA. Integrated public transit surveys have played an important role in the development of masterplans, which have been implemented regularly every 5 years for over 50 years. The surveys collect data regarding the travel behavior of railway passengers through a large-scale questionnaire as well as the supply of railway services through reports from all the railway companies. The collected data are integrated into a database, which is used in the planning process of the masterplan, including problem identification, problem structuring, travel demand analysis, and railway project assessment. What explains the successful implementation of integrated travel demand surveys for the urban rail network in the TMA? In this paper, the integrated travel survey system is

494 Kato, H. et al. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508. reviewed, highlighting an urban railway market in the TMA, and analyzes potential reasons that the survey system has worked effectively under the cooperation of the government and multiple railway companies. The critical factors identified from the experience of the TMA could be applicable to other cities where more participation of private entities in the public transit market is expected in the near future. The paper is organized as follows. The next section summarizes the Metropolitan Transport Census (MTC), which is a large-scale travel survey for the railway market in the TMA. The scope, method, and implementation process of the survey are summarized. Next, the participation of stakeholders in the travel demand survey is analyzed, followed by a discussion of the potential implications from the case of the TMA. Finally, the findings are summarized and further studies are suggested. Note that this paper highlights the urban railway in the TMA; it also contains data on the bus system and covers other metropolitan areas in Japan.

2. METROPOLIRAN TRANSPORT CENSUS

2.1 Objectives and scopes of Metropolitan Transport Census

The MTC is an official travel survey for railway and bus public transportation, organized by the national government of Japan. The MTC covers the Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya metropolitan areas, all of which are major business and commercial agglomerations in Japan. In particular, the TMA is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and includes Japan’s capital city, Tokyo, containing over 30 million inhabitants. Tokyo is one of the most transit-oriented cities in the world (Cervero, 1998); over 30 railway companies provide railway services on their own rail networks, and approximately 70% of railway passengers in the TMA travel across multiple rail lines operated by different rail companies (Kato et al., 2003). Figure 1 illustrates the railway network in the TMA as of July 2018, which shows the

East Japan Railway Company Central Japan Railway Company Bureau of Transportation, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Transportation Bureau, City of Yokohama Co.,Ltd. Corporation Co.,Ltd. Co.,Ltd. Co.,Ltd. Co.,Ltd. Yamaman Co .,L t d . Shibayama RAILWAY Co.,Ltd. Shin-Keisei Electric Railway Co.,Ltd. Chichibu Railway Co.,Ltd. Co.,Ltd. Kanto Railway Co.,Ltd. Ryutetsu Co.,Ltd. Kominato Railway Co.,Ltd. Hokuso-Railway Co.,Ltd. Urban Co.,Ltd. isumirailway Enoshima Electric Railway Co.,Ltd. YOKOHAMA SEASIDE LINE Co.,Ltd. Tokyo Tama Intercity Monorail Co.,Ltd. Yu ri k amo me In c. Tokyo Waterfront Area .Inc Hakone Tozan Railway Co.,Ltd. 30km TOYO RAPID RAILWAY Saitama Railway Corporation YOKOHAMA MINATOMIRAI RAILWAY COMPANY Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company IZUHAKONE RAILWAY Co.,Ltd. 50km Co.,Ltd. . Co.,Ltd. Saitama New Urban Transit Co.,Ltd. Figure 1. Railway network in Tokyo Metropolitan Area by railway company as of July 2018.

495 Kato, H. et al. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508. complex railway lines operated by 37 railway companies. Thus, to capture a panorama of railway passenger flows in the TMA, neither a line-based nor a company-based travel demand survey is adequate, but rather an integrated travel survey is required, which covers multiple railway companies in the metropolitan area. This is one of main motivations for the government to organize an integrated travel survey. It should be noted that person-trip surveys, which collect the data of individuals’ daily trips have also been regularly implemented in the TMA. However, they aim to collect information mainly about OD patterns and individuals’ travel mode choices rather than railway demand; thus, they do not contain the data of individuals’ railway route choices or railway connections, which are required for urban railway planning. The MTC was first introduced by the Ministry of Transport in 1960 and has been implemented every five years since then, with the latest survey carried out in 2015. Its main objective is to produce a basic public transit database that can be used for developing public transportation strategies/plans in the TMA. Its scope has been gradually changed, reflecting the changes in socioeconomic conditions, regional travel demand patterns, and policy requirements. Table 1 summarizes historical changes in the major objectives of the MTC. The initial MTC, implemented in 1960, highlighted only home-to-work and home-to-school trips because they were the major travel demand at that time. However, MTCs conducted since 1975 cover other types of trips, such as business and private trips. This is because the travel objectives of public transit demand have gradually diversified under the economic growth of the metropolitan areas of Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. Second, the 1960 MTC did not include data on passenger transfers in the survey, but the MTCs since 1975 have collected data on transfer flows at connections in railway stations. This is because more transfers of passengers occurred owing to the development of complex public transit networks. Additionally, the 2005 MTC introduced a survey for the supplies of connection facilities in railway stations, such as stairs, escalators, and elevators. This reflects rapid ageing of the population in metropolitan areas, which requires better connection facilities in the public transit networks. Third, in MTCs conducted from 1980, an analysis component that aims to analyze an association of population distribution patterns with travel demand and dynamic

Table 1. Historical changes in objectives of MTC Year Main Objectives Described in MTC 1960 The survey aims to produce basic evidence to support the development of adequate transportation strategies under rapid growth of transportation demand caused by migration into the metropolitan area. It captures travel demand patterns in the area, particularly daily origin–destination patterns, and its variation over time of a day for home-to-workplace and home-to-school trips as well as interactions between transportation modes. 1975 The survey aims to produce basic evidence to support the development of regional network plans for public transportation by collecting travel demand data on mass public transportation modes in the Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya metropolitan areas to capture passengers’ origin–destination patterns, routes, their variations over time of a day, and transfers. 1980 The survey aims to produce basic evidence to support the development of regional network plans for public transportation by collecting travel demand data on mass public transportation modes in the Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya metropolitan areas to capture passengers’ origin–destination patterns, routes, their variations over time of a day, and transfers as well as by analyzing the association of population distribution patterns with travel demand and dynamic changes in travel demand structure. 2005 The survey aims to produce basic evidence to support the development of public transportation strategies by collecting travel demand data on mass public transportation modes in the Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya metropolitan areas to capture passengers’ origin–destination patterns, routes, their variation over time of a day, transfers, and connection facilities as well as by analyzing the association of population distribution patterns with travel demand and dynamic changes in travel demand structure.

496 Kato, H. et al. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508. changes in travel demand structure was newly introduced into the survey project in addition to the existing data collection component. This has changed the function of the MTC from a simple travel survey project to a comprehensive travel demand analysis project. It should be noted that the 1960 MTC explicitly identified the transportation problem as “rapid growth of transportation demand” and also specified its major causal factor as “migration into the metropolitan area.” However, urban transportation problems in metropolitan areas became more complex as they grew, with travel demand patterns becoming influenced by many factors in a more complicated manner such that they required sophisticated investigation for better understanding the problem structure. The geographical coverage of the MTC has also been changing over time. The 1960 MTC covered traffic to and from the Tokyo ward areas, Yokohama city, and Kawasaki city; but the coverage was extended to an area within a 50-km radius from the central business district (CBD) in the 1970 MTC, and was further extended to an area within a two-hour equivalent rail-trip distance (a nearly 70-km radius) from the CBD in the 1975 MTC. Since the 2000 MTC, it has remained relatively unchanged. The extension of the coverage area of the MTC reflects the geographical expansion of urbanized areas in line with population growth due to continuing migration from rural areas to Tokyo. Figure 2 illustrates changes in the rail-use travel patterns of commuters to the CBD of the TMA from 1960 to 2000 using the National Population Census. This shows that the area in which 3% or more of the working population commutes to the CBD expanded from 1960 to 1995, but little change in the area has been observed since 2000. This indicates that the rapid migration into the TMA expanded the commutable areas from 1960 to 1995, which required the extension of the geographical coverage of the travel survey, whereas the migration has still continued but not distributed into the entire TMA, but concentrated into the central areas of Tokyo by 2000 or later, which resulted in little change in the coverage area.

2.2 Railway survey

One of the surveys in the MTC is a railway survey that consists of a “railway demand survey” and a “railway service supply survey.” The former collects railway-travel demand patterns through a railway passenger survey and an OD survey, and the latter collects the data on railway service through reports from the railway companies. Figure 3 illustrates historical changes in the railway survey from 1960 to 2015, showing that the railway demand surveys from 1960 to 2000 cover seasonal ticket users only, but those conducted since 2005 cover both seasonal and regular ticket users. One of the reasons for this change was the introduction of the smart card system in 2005 in the TMA; another reason was that passengers other than seasonal ticket users have been gradually more emphasized in transit planning. Note that seasonal tickets in Japan typically enable an individual to use a fixed route between a pair of fixed OD stations during a given period, typically, 1, 3, 6, or 12 months. The railway passenger survey collects data on rail-use passenger trips with the passengers’ personal attributes. Table 2 summarizes changes in the railway passenger surveys from 1960 to 2015. The table indicates that from 1960 to 2000, surveys were conducted by face-to-face interviews at the seasonal ticket counters; however, the method changed to a paper-based questionnaire survey via postal mail in addition to a Web-based questionnaire survey from the 2005 MTC onwards. This change was intended to cover non-seasonal ticket users as well as to incorporate technological innovation into the survey design. Table 2 also reveals that the sample size in recent MTCs has been declining since 1990, mainly due to declining voluntary participation of respondents in the questionnaire survey, particularly from younger passengers. Note that the average sample rate is approximately 1.7% for the latest

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1960 1965 1970

1975 1980 1985

1990 1995 2000

2005 2010 2015 Newly added areas with 3% or more of working population commuting to Tokyo ward area at the year Existing areas with 3% or more of working population commuting to Tokyo ward area by the year Newly introduced railway lines at the year Source: MLIT (2008) Existing railway lines by the year Figure 2. Changes in areas with commuters to central business district from 1960 to 2015

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Railway Survey Year Railway Demand Survey Railway Service Supply Rail. Pax. Survey O–D Survey Data Treatment Survey 1960 1965

Rail Sales data on 1970 Seasonal ticket

seasonal tickets p

users only is with sales data data magnified assenger survey

1975 Sales data on both to seasonal and regular 2000 tickets on seasonal tickets

magnified with automatic ticket with automatic magnified

2005 is data survey passenger Rail Transfer Both seasonal and Level of distance regular ticket users railway and time at service by connections

2010 Sales data on g time of in major seasonal tickets and ate data day railway automatic ticket gate stations data Domestic seasonal and regular ticket 2015 users plus international rail passengers.

Figure 3. Historical changes in railway survey in MTC from 1960 to 2015.

MTC. The questions in the survey have also varied over the years, but they mainly ask for personal attributes and rail-use trips including start/final stations of each trip, railway routes, arrival/departure time, and first/last-mile trips. The OD survey collects aggregated rail-use traffic flows from origin stations to destination stations, which produces an OD traffic matrix. The OD traffic volume estimated from the OD survey is used for expanding the sample-based data collected from the railway passenger survey into the population scale. The OD traffic volume is estimated from two types of data sources—the sales data on seasonal tickets at ticket counters, and the traffic data on passengers passing though automatic ticket gates at stations. First, the sales data on seasonal tickets contain the volume of valid tickets for commuting and going to school between stations with seasonal-ticket holders’ age and gender. The seasonal tickets are usually discounted tickets, with discount rates varying across operators. In Japan, many commuters and students who regularly travel fixed routes with fixed OD stations purchase seasonal tickets. However, other types of tickets, such as regular tickets and smart cards without the function of seasonal tickets, have also been widely used in Japan’s urban railway market. This information cannot be captured with the sales data on seasonal tickets. Next, the automatic ticket gates were introduced first with magnetic stripe cards from the 1990s and were replaced by smart cards after the early 2000s in Japan, which can collect the data on passenger records of passing through the ticket gates. These data have been used for producing the OD passenger flows since the 2005 MTC. It should be noted that both the sales data on seasonal tickets and automatic ticket-gate data are provided by the railway companies under a request from the national government.

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Table 2. Changes in railway passenger surveys in MTC from 1960 to 2015 Year 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Methods of data collection FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF PM/Web PM/WebPM/Web Sample size in TMA (Thousand) 914 1,046 N/A 355 446 379 454 361 291 183/8 187/26 146/56 Questions in the survey Personal attributes Gender ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Age ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Home address ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Workplace/School address ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Seasonal ticket Type ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Number of tickets ✓ ✓ Origin/destination stations ✓ ✓ ✓ Period ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Price ✓ Cost payer ✓ ✓ ✓ Station of ticket counters ✓ ✓ ✓ Weekly work days ✓ ✓ ✓ Day of last week to commute/go to school ✓ Start of work hours at workplace ✓ ✓ Travel time of commuting Total travel duration ✓

Departure/arrival time ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Travel purpose ✓ ✓ ✓ Origin/destination place ✓ ✓ ✓ Railway trips Departure/arrival time ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Routes Start/terminating stations ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Departure/arrival time ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Name of used lines ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Travel mode ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Type of rail service ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ In-vehicle congestion ✓ ✓ Type of tickets ✓ ✓ ✓ Fast/last-mile trips Fast/last-mile travel time ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Fast/last-mile travel mode ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Return trip Arrival time at home ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Day of week ✓ ✓ ✓ Routes of return trip ✓ Travel mode ✓ ✓ Departure time ✓ Departure time at origin station ✓ ✓ ✓ Arrival time at destination station ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Origin station ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Destination station ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Departing place ✓ Work-time system Flexible work-time system ✓ ✓ Core work-time at workplace ✓ ✓ Notes: ST represents seasonal ticket users, RT represents regular ticket users, FF represents a face-to-face interview, PM represents face-to-face distribution of questionnaire sheets and postal mail collection, and Web represents face-to-face requests for participation to answer the questionnaire survey through the web.

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Next, the railway service supply survey collects data on the level of railway service by time of day and service at connection facilities. The railway service includes the rail network (stations and rail lines under operation), timetable (service frequency and scheduled travel time), size of rolling stocks (total capacity of traffic), and service delay, all of which are reported by the railway companies. The service at connection facilities includes physical distance of transfers, number of transfer facilities (such as stairs and elevators), and transfer time by types of transfer facilities at major railway stations, which are collected through original site surveys organized by the study team.

2.3 Data sharing

The databases produced by the MTC are shared with the public, and there are two ways to access the data. The first method is to browse the formally published reports and processed datasets at the official government website. The reports contain information about the dynamics of urban transit demand through time, analysis results regarding the association of urban travel demand with socioeconomic/demographic conditions, and estimated impact of public transit policy on travel demand in the metropolitan areas. The website also provides spreadsheets of the datasets in Microsoft Excel format, including the station-to-station OD railway passenger flow matrix and transfer passengers at each station, which are downloadable by the public. The second method is to use raw data collected from a series of surveys in the MTC, including sample-based individual data. The raw data is available through an official application to the government following the Statistics Act of Japan. According to the Act, data availability is subject to several conditions: the data should not be used for commercial purposes; and only Japan’s domestic administrative organizations or other organizations that work for public welfare under a permission from the government can submit applications. Thus, private firms can access the raw dataset, in practice, only if they jointly apply with the domestic administrative organizations or the non-profit organizations permitted by the government for contributing to social benefit.

2.4 Survey process and participation of stakeholders

A four-year process is required for implementing a series of surveys and analysis in an MTC, including four stages—survey preparation, survey implementation, data processing, and data analyses. A series of survey processes is managed by the government, where each stage is jointly carried out under cooperation with the government, private/public railway operators, and transportation academics/experts. Figure 4 summarizes the survey process and participation of the three stakeholders throughout the process for the case of the 2015 MTC. The government proposes and organizes a set of surveys and processes and analyzes the data, most of which are outsourced to a survey team whose members are transportation professionals from a private consultancy. The private/public transit operators carry out the data collection under guidance from a survey committee, in which representatives of the major stakeholders participate. The committee holds regular meetings (3-4 times annually), at which the strategies, goals, and scope of the surveys are determined. Moreover, the committee holds technical working groups in which the transportation academics/experts provide technical advice to the survey team regarding the methods and design of surveys, as well as regional meetings in which regional transit operators discuss the survey methods in a regional context. Four or five transportation academics/experts are invited to the working group, who are chosen from university researchers, mainly in transportation planning and economics.

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Process Government/Survey Team Private Operators Academics/Experts Preparation: Survey plan is proposed Improvement of survey Survey design, scope, based on the policy design and its scope are and process are requirements. requested of the survey 2014 examined. team.

(Year 1) Technical advice about the

survey design are provided to the study team.

Implementation: Survey implementation Surveys are implemented The surveys are guidelines are prepared following the guidelines carried out to collect and an advertisement using their own human the data. 2015 soliciting survey resources and collected (Year 2) participation is made to data are submitted to the railway users. survey team. The validity of the surveys is evaluated.

Data Processing: The collected data are The collected data are O–D data and service coded and processed to coded and processed by supply data are provided produce the dataset. magnifying the to the survey team. The sample-based data to the developed dataset is 2016 population scale and the validated against their (Year 3) basic characteristics of the in-house database. dataset are summarized. Requests for improving the data processing are made to the study team. The validity of the data processing is evaluated.

Data Analysis: The latest travel demand The dataset is analyzed The estimated impacts of patterns are analyzed and own investments on travel in line with policy the impacts of recent demand patterns are strategies in detail and infrastructure investments verified with their further issues are discussed. on travel demand are in-house database. 2017 analyzed. Further issues Comments on (Year 4) Analysis results are of the travel demand improvements of the reviewed. Feasibility of survey including survey design are introducing new survey technical challenges are presented. technologies are examined. examined.

Figure 4. Survey process and roles of major stakeholders in the 2015 MTC

3. COOPERATIVE MECHANISM IN METROPOLITAN TRANSPORT CENSUS

3.1 Contributions of database to public transit planning in metropolitan areas

As shown previously, one of the objectives of implementing the MTC is to produce a dataset to contribute to developing regional public transit plans. The long-term urban railway development masterplans have been developed using the MTC dataset. Its contributions can be categorized following four steps in the policy management of the public transportation system, as summarized in Figure 5. Note that this was produced on the basis of our inferences derived from our past experiences of transportation planning with MTC. This shows that both the government and the railway companies interact with each other throughout the process, into which the travel demand data from the MTC have been well incorporated. First, the travel demand data from the MTC are used for the in-house investigation of the railway

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Steps Government (Public) Railway Companies (Private/Public) Plan Council for Transport Policy commissioned by Business strategies including new potential the Minister discusses long-term railway investment rail projects are examined through network development masterplans in TMA in-house investigations, where the feasibility of every 15 years. It first reviews previous potential investment plans is assessed using the masterplans and then examines long-term travel demand data on their own network and strategies/vision of urban railway system in line other companies’ networks. The potential plans with expected changes in socio-demographic are then discussed with stakeholders including and socio-economic conditions in TMA. local municipalities and local people, and accepted from them.

The Council invites the urban railway market stakeholders including private railway companies to make their proposals. The Council Proposals of new investment projects are formally formulated with project design and summarizes potential investment projects based on the proposals, and assesses their feasibility cost estimation, and are presented to the with travel demand forecast, cost-benefit government through the Council meetings analysis, socio-economic impact analysis, and jointly with other stakeholders. The expected financial feasibility studies in line with the contributions of their proposal to the long-term strategies/vision. Travel demand government’s strategies/vision are carefully models are developed for the project assessment examined using the travel demand data, such

using various datasets including the MTC data. TransportCensus Metropolitan that the proposals are included in the long-term railway network development masterplan.

A package of railway development projects is Detailed design of constructing railway recommended to the Minister. facilities is established for the proposed project and is submitted to the authorities. Do Financial support is delivered to project. Railway facilities are constructed.

Check Travel demand is regularly monitored in newly The data on ridership and performance developed rail lines with the assistance of data indicators are collected in response to the sharing from railway operators. request from the government and are shared with the government.

Performance of newly developed rail lines are evaluated with the monitored data. In-house performance evaluation of newly developed rail lines is implemented with the travel demand data.

Action Necessary actions are examined and Necessary actions are examined and taken recommended to stakeholders including local based on the in-house performance evaluation municipalities and railway operators in case and/or government’s recommendations. If unexpected events and/or socio-economic formal permission from the government is changes cause deviations from the forecasted required for improving the performance, the scenario, such as increasing service frequency necessary procedure is applied. For at congested rail lines or introducing additional implementing the additional actions, their urban development along rail lines with poorer feasibility and expected impacts are analyzed ridership than expected. with the collected travel demand data.

Figure 5. Policy management in urban public transit system.

companies to check their business strategies, including their new investment projects. Second, the MTC data are also used for estimating a travel demand forecast model system (Kato et al., 2017), which is applied to the travel demand forecast, cost-benefit analysis, and financial feasibility analysis in developing the long-term urban railway development masterplans. The

503 Kato, H. et al. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508. model system is developed by the Council. Third, the data for monitoring the performance of new railway lines are jointly collected by both the government and the railway companies. The collected data are used for evaluating the performance in line with the long-term development strategies by the government; they are also used for evaluating the in-house performance of the railway companies. Fourth, the data are again utilized for examining the necessary actions that should be taken against unexpected results of investment. The travel demand data enable them to identify problems and analyze the expected impact of potential actions aimed at solving the problems.

3.2. Advantages and disadvantages in cooperative travel demand survey

First, the latest masterplan primarily prioritizes the contribution of the urban railway network to the enhancement of the international competitiveness of Tokyo. The MTC data enable monitoring the railway travel demand to/from airports and high-speed rail stations. In particular, the 2015 MTC started to cover international visitors, which have increased rapidly in recent years and are expected to increase further. Thus, valuable information is provided not only to railway companies but also to other industries, such as the tourism sector. Second, the latest masterplan also claims further improvement of urban rail service for improving daily life, including daily travel in the TMA. The MTC data provide the panel data on railway service performance, such as in-vehicle congestion during peak hours in the urban railway network and variation of travel demand with the time of day. The government has promoted the diversification of commuter arrival time by requesting passengers to voluntarily shift their departure time from peak hours to off-peak hours, so that the in-vehicle congestion is expected to decline during morning peak hours. Third, the latest masterplan emphasizes the development of sustainable urban rail networks integrated with urban redevelopment and improvement in the quality of station spaces. One of the goals related to this strategy is to upgrade facility designs/operations of trains and railway stations by removing physical/operational barriers for railway users, including handicapped people, aged passengers, pregnant women, individuals with children, and foreign visitors, so that they can use the urban railway services with better security and safety. The MTC provides the information of transfers at rail stations as well as that of connection facilities at major stations, such that it enables railway companies to examine current bottlenecks/barriers and necessary actions to remove them to facilitate the smooth transfer of passengers. Fourth, the masterplan further highlights the improvement of reliability in the TMA’s urban rail services. In the TMA, an extremely high-frequency service, such as a 1.5 min service interval during morning peak hours, results in the loss of redundancy in the timetable, which has recently caused poorer travel time reliability (Kato, 2014). One of the typical reasons for the slight delays in rail services is the unexpected extension of dwell time of trains at railway stations, which is caused by irregular behavior of passengers, particularly during congested hours. The MTC could provide the data on peak-hour travel demand by station so that an association of traffic congestion with the survey delay at each station can be analyzed, which could contribute to the development of better solutions. Finally, the latest masterplan also suggests the promotion of anti-disaster actions against expected severe earthquakes in the TMA. Although the MTC cannot satisfy travel demand under emergencies, it could give the expected traffic flows in the urban rail network at every time of a day, such that potential damage or passengers affected by a disaster could be simulated at any hypothetical time. This would enable the government to examine possible countermeasures under various scenarios. Meanwhile, the government should manage the complex process of preparing, designing, and implementing the survey by negotiating with stakeholders. In particular, the

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MTC is unique in that the data collection is implemented by the railway companies, which means that the survey cost and necessary resources are voluntarily absorbed by the railway companies. Although there are many benefits for the railway companies, they might participate in the survey only if the benefit would exceed their burdens. These burdens could be serious, particularly to small- and medium-size railway companies, which may give them a lower motivation to participate in the survey. Thus, the government must carefully request all railway companies in the metropolitan areas to support it. It should be noted that the government also shares the cost for organizing and designing of the survey, coding the collected data, and analyzing them. As the budget constraints have recently become more stringent, the government should devote more effort to extolling the benefits of the survey to the taxpayers and/or public transit passengers. For the railway companies, the MTC provides the travel demand data regarding their own railway network/lines, which contributes to monitoring their business performance. The MTC can also share the travel demand data in other companies’ railway network/lines, which may be useful for each railway company because it enables the benchmarking of its performance in comparison with other companies. It may also be valuable to examine the business strategies, particularly when a rail line operated by one company is physically connected to another rail line operated by a different company. The participation of private railway companies in the MTC may also give the message of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to their equity holders and customers that the companies contribute to the national survey organized by the government. Additionally, the railway companies might expect to have better communication with the railway regulator (the government) through participation in the national survey, such that they could be granted permission more smoothly by the government in the future. It should be noted, however, that the potential benefit for railway companies from participating in the MTC may vary across companies. For instance, a railway company whose rail network is locally closed and/or physically independent from other rail network may get poorer benefit from the MTC participation than railway companies whose rail network is well connected with others. Advantages of railway companies to participate in the MTC should be further elaborated, for instance, through interviews with railway companies. As discussed earlier, many railway companies have suffered from the high burden of the survey work. They usually outsource the survey implementation to private survey firms, whereas they should input their own human resources for survey implementation and supervision. They also pay the cost of the postal mail required for returning the answer sheets from respondents. Note that the average survey cost in the latest MTC is estimated to be approximately US$ 13–15 per sample, shared approximately 50% by the government and 50% by the railway companies. Some small or medium companies have recently started to distribute the questionnaire sheets directly from their employees, due to the lack of budget for outsourcing.

4. DISCUSSION

The cooperative survey system in the MTC has operated successfully and has contributed to long-term urban transit network planning. Why do private operators voluntarily support the survey? One potential answer to this question is that the planning vision of the government is to some extent in line with the business strategies of the railway companies. As shown in Figure 3, the long-term masterplan proposed by the Council is developed in close consultation with the stakeholders, including the railway companies, throughout the policy management

505 Kato, H. et al. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508. process, so that the masterplan incorporates the requests and/or suggestions from each railway company. Furthermore, the private railway companies should formulate their business strategies in line with the government’s vision because they face social pressure from investors and/or railway passengers, requesting that the railway companies contribute to the development of a sustainable society by providing higher quality railway service. In particular, many private railway companies in the TMA run integrated businesses, including not only the railway service but also other related businesses, such as real estate, retail, tourism, and hotel management. For instance, the business strategies of railway companies could influence the residential choices of inhabitants in the metropolitan areas, which could affect the ridership of the railway network. Thus, a corporate brand image is one of their most important assets, which is mainly supported by investors and customers. Empirical data from surveys, such as the MTC, enable companies to present effective evidence to their investors so that they can attain support for business strategies, including new investment plans. Moreover, it enables them to present their performance to customers, such that they can earn more profits from railway ridership as well as from related businesses. The experiences from the cooperative travel survey system in Japan’s metropolitan areas could be applicable to other major cities where multiple stakeholders participate in the urban transportation market. The implementation of data sharing among stakeholders could be the first step for cooperative planning in transportation. In particular, integrated datasets could contribute to both the public and the private actors in the public transit market. The basic mechanism under the cooperative system may be one of reciprocal monitoring through the survey database. For instance, the railway companies monitor the performance of other companies with the integrated survey database, while they are also monitored by the government as well as by investors or customers with the database. The government is also monitored by people with respect to their vision regarding the database, for example, as to whether the key performance indicators work well or not. Such transparency of the urban railway market could motivate the stakeholders to work together, both in the development of the database and in transportation planning.

5. CONCLUSION

In this study, the critical factors of the integrated travel survey system for urban railway networks in metropolitan areas of Japan were investigated, in which public and private entities jointly develop a database of travel demand. The cooperative travel demand survey system was examined within the scope of policy management processes, including the long-term railway development masterplans. The study revealed that a potential reason for its success is a win-win situation, in which the vision of public transportation planning presented by the government aligns to some degree with the business strategies of the private railway companies. It was also demonstrated that the above alignment is due to the mechanism of interactive communications among the stakeholders through the planning management process. Both the government and the private railway companies are directly or indirectly governed by third parties, including taxpayers, investors, and customers. A diversified business model for the private railway companies in Japan could also affect their mindset to contribute to the government’s vision as a part of their CSR strategies. As the abovementioned discussions are still hypothetical, they should be verified with further evidence such as through interviews with railway companies and/or government officials. There are many challenges in the MTC. Survey costs have been increasing, while both the government and the railway companies have suffered from lower budgets due partly to the

506 Kato, H. et al. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2019), 493–508. rapidly aging and declining population. Despite the benefit of CSR contributions made by the railway companies for sustainable development through participation in the integrated survey, the high survey costs could lead to a lack of support, even by investors and customers, leading to strong requests by the railway companies to reduce the survey cost. Although automatic ticket-gate data has been used for years in the OD survey, the introduction of further advanced survey methods with the development of information and communication technologies, such as data collection through mobile phones and Wi-Fi signals, is expected to reduce the survey cost. The current survey design in the travel demand survey covers travel trips of a single day only. More advanced survey methods, particularly using big data, could extend the period of trips or provide real-time data, which may enable the analysis of the day-to-day dynamics and time-of-day dynamics of travel demand. The introduction of such new survey methods may require further collaboration between the public and private sectors. For instance, the Wi-Fi devices in railway stations are typically installed by the railway companies; therefore, their installation plans should be carefully negotiated among the stakeholders for effective data collection through Wi-Fi signals. Additionally, to introduce new methods, other stakeholders (such as mobile phone companies) should be invited into the survey framework, which could change the balance of advantages/disadvantages among the stakeholders. This may be a new challenge for the sustainability of the integrated travel survey.

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Received November 03, 2018; Accepted February 07, 2019

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