192｜Practice

A study on the level of service for local public
transport to secure basic daily life
1. Background and objective
Maintaining public transport services is not an easy task for local community, especially in rural areas.
Residents who are unable to use private cars feel difficulty in taking opportunities for the minimum
activities necessary for daily life, such as commuting to work or school, visiting shops, and going to thehospital. Faced with financial constraints, a question of where and to what extent public transport services should be secured and maintained is a significant concern for those responsible for local transport
policy.
To determine the level of service for public transport that should be secured, it is necessary todefine an ideal state of the local community and clarify the role of transport to achieve it. However, nosufficient methodology to this end has been established.
Accordingly, this project was implemented to create a method for determining the level of service
for public transport that a local community should secure and to develop a methodology by which toformulate a local public transport plan as the basis of these services.

2. Methodology and field study
2-1. Significance of local public transport planning and necessity of planning
methodology
The number of users of public transport has decreased along with the progress of motorization, andpublic bus services are no longer profitable in regions where car usage has become widespread. The factthat services essential to society are not sufficiently provided when left to private businesses suggeststhat local public transport should be regarded as social infrastructure.
What changes when securing and maintaining local public transport are treated as improvementsof social infrastructure? The change is the resulting necessity of planning. For example, planning isimplemented when developing social infrastructure, such as river and road improvements. The reason
for implementing this planning is to demonstrate that the scheduled improvement will be efficient andeffective, and to build social consensus, because the improvement of social infrastructure will be carriedout by a public entity and funded by taxes. In other words, this is planning with a public intent. However, while there are business plans for local public transport decided by companies, almost no transport
Project Leader: Hideyuki KitaProfessor, Division of Civil Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kobe University

A study on the level of service for local public transport to secure basic daily life｜193

plans are decided as social infrastructure improvement plans. One possible reason for this is a lack ofplanning methodology. Herein lies the significance of constructing a planning methodology by which toestablish the level of service for local public transport in this project.
2-2. Framework
When determining the level of service for public transport, the level that should be secured cannot bedecided unilaterally. Stipulations such as operating a certain minimum number of buses per day are notmeaningful per se. Instead, the basic index is the amount of opportunities for activities that can besecured via the operating buses. Furthermore, in the event that the municipality improves the public
transport service, the improvements need to be based on the decision of residents as both taxpayers andusers of public transport. The budget constraints of the municipality are limited according to the tax
burden of the residents, and so the administration should determine the kind of public services that arenecessary and the level of increase in tax burden that residents would permit in return, reflecting this in
the budget. In this project, we established a review framework for the local public transport plan asshown in Fig. 1, recognizing the importance of the idea that residents select the combination of opportunities for activities to be secured and the associated tax burden.

Users
Opportunities for daily life activities
Activity times
Quality of opportunities for activities

Non-users

Provider (municipality/business)
Review of alternative plans• Route plans• Timetables• Vehicles/service format, etc.

Inherent value, potential
value of use, etc.

Amount of willingness to pay

Selection

Menu of services and burdens

Figure 1. Review framework for the local public transport plan

2-3. Planning methodology for local
public transport

Local public transport master plan

(1) Overall structure
Local public transport planning is the selec-

Local public transport plan decision-making processtion and proposal of the most desirable public
transport system for the region. To this end,

Local public transport plan content structure

three stages are necessary: (1) demonstrate theFigure 2. Overall structure of the local public transport plan

194｜Practice

way of thinking by which the desired public
transport system is selected, (2) select adesired public transport system, and (3) present the outcome of the selection. In this project, we proposed a planning system comprising the three elements shown in Fig. 2.
(2) Local public transport master plan
The local public transport master plan is thedeclaration of the intent to create a local public transport plan. Table 1 shows the necessityof planning and shows the stance of themunicipality formulating and promoting theplan as policy.
(3) Decision-making process and structureof local public transport plan content
The process for deciding the local public
transport plan is systematically organized sothat all details that must be considered to formulate a better plan are presented. Here, it isnecessary to list proposals for consideration in
full and have the local residents select the best
proposal according to the relationshipbetween the benefit returned and the tax burden. The organization of the content of thelocal public transport plan (Table 2) presents a
structure for when the results of the investigation carried out based on the decision-making
process and the service provision plan selected
are summarized as a local public transport
plan. We therefore consider this to illustrate
one of the standard forms of the local public
transport plan.

Table 1. Local public transport master plan
1. Identification of the structure of exchanges among people in
the local community
2. Image of a mobility plan for the people in the localcommunity
3. Basic policy for securing public transport
4. Public body's declaration to promote public transport policy
5. Policy for the effective administration of public transport
services
6. Appeal for the mobilization (cooperation) of local residents
7. Basic stance toward local public transport planning
Table 2. Structure of public transport plan content
1. Background to the plan
2. Verification of the local public transport master plan
3. Decision and zoning of service provision standards
3.1 Framework of the plan
3.2 Local characteristics
3.3 Structure of the region and basic structure of the public
transport network
3.4 Opportunities for activities that should be secured
3.5 Service provision standards for each zone
4. Service provision plan
4.1 Transport services
4.2 Form of services
4.3 Route network plan
4.4 Region-specific service plans
4.5 Fare/local tax burden
4.6 Service costs/improvement of efficiency
5. Public procurement plan
5.1 Estimation and classification of profitable/unprofitable
routes
5.2 Selection of administration format
5.3 Selection of transport operator
6. Public commitment

2-4. Field study
To verify whether the planning methodology proposed in this project is effective and suitable for practical application, and to identify issues and points for improvement, a field study was carried out in
Hirakawa City, Aomori Prefecture. The research group provided expertise and gave technical advice to aA study on the level of service for local public transport to secure basic daily life｜195

local colloquium, and the region offered progress and investigation results to the research group. At thecolloquium, alternative plans were presented for the number of buses and the timetables necessary fordaily life, the number of services operable within the limits of the subsidy, and the resulting passenger
fares. A discussion was then held among the residents, who elected for a combination of a 200 yen fareand an increased number of services in comparison to the present 100 yen fare and 5 services. They
went on to propose the scheduling of school buses and other such development.
In this way, the residents themselves were able to select the public transport services to provide
opportunities for activities, confirming that the review framework was applicable, at least in this context.
From the achievement of more favorable conditions for the residents than before and the greater abilityof the municipality to provide public transport that meets the needs of the residents within the limits offinancial constraints, the effectiveness of the review framework was also confirmed.

3. Conclusions
In the event of the municipality participating in the provision of public transport services, the municipality cannot unilaterally determine the level of service that should be secured, and it is only possible toselect the level of service by deciding a local transport plan. Through research, we proposed the construction of a methodology for local public transport planning and a method for selecting the level ofservice. It was then confirmed that these were effective and suitable for application in practice. Based onthese results, the research team is compiling guidelines for local public transport planning.
After the Act on Revitalization and Rehabilitation of Local Public Transport Systems was enactedin October 2007, many municipalities began formulating public transport plans. Future tasks are
improving the methodology proposed in this project through implementation and applying it broadly. It
may also be necessary to go beyond the provision of public transport, and to consider a comprehensive
support strategy that incorporates the policies of various administrative departments.