Opening Remarks by Chairman Shukuri
for theRail Symposium 2024: Value Creation for a Sustainable Society

Good afternoon, everyone. I am Masafumi Shukuri, Chairman of theJTTRI, Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute, and of the JITTI,
Japan International Transport and Tourism Institute, USA.

I would like to thank everyone who took time out of their busy
schedules to join today's symposium in-person and online.

First of all, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to the
Honorable Shigeo Yamada, Ambassador of Japan to the United States
for his video greeting for this symposium.
Ambassador Yamada has been incredibly busy attending Prime
Minister Kishida’s official visit to the US and arranging official events
including the US-Japan summit, the trilateral summit with the US,
Japan and the Philippines, and PM Kishida’s invitation to speak at theUS Congress, but he kindly spared us his time to give his message here.

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I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to our two keynote
speakers:
Ms. Jennifer Mitchel, Deputy Administrator, Federal Railroad
Administration, Department of Transportation
Ms. Masako Okano, Deputy Director-General, Railway Bureau,
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

In addition, I would like to thank our two distinguished moderatorsand eight panelists from railway companies in the US and Japan fortaking time out of your busy schedules to gather with us here in
Washington, D.C. from all over the United States and Japan.

Today's symposium is co-sponsored by the American Public
Transportation Association (APTA) and the JITTI USA, the US branch ofthe JTTRI, to discuss the role and signiﬁcance of rail as a public
transportation system, and to discuss the situation of railway systems
in Japan and the U.S.
With APTA, we have co-organized a number of events, but due to theCOVID-19 outbreak, we had to cancel the March 2020 symposium on
railway safety measures, and we were obliged to hold the December
2021 roundtable on the recovery of railway from pandemic online.
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Today is the ﬁrst in-person event we are co-hosting with APTA since
the end of the pandemic. Thank you, Chairman Skoutelas, thanks toyour support, we have a wonderful symposium today. Thank you verymuch.

Also, this symposium is held as an official event of the annualNational Cherry Blossom Festival, as was our symposium “U.S.-Japan
International Exchange and Tourism Symposium,” which was held inMarch,2023.
For more than 100 years, cherry blossoms ﬂowering along thePotomac River have been coloring landscapes of the Capital andfeasting the eyes of citizens of Washington D.C. as if they aresymbolizing the perpetual friendship between the US and Japan.
Ms. Daiana MAYHEW, President of the National Cherry Blossoms
Festival, is joining us. Thank you very much for your exceptional supportfor today’s event.

Today, I would like to focus on the social and economic beneﬁt of therailway system, and how we can work together to build a sustainable
rail system in the United States and Japan.

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Here’s a little bit of history for you.
It was the United States that brought the ﬁrst railway to Japan in 1854.
When Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry visited Japan on theBlack Ships, he brought various gifts for Tokugawa Shogun among
which included a steam locomotive.
It was only 2.4 meters long, a quarter-scale model of the real thing,but it was coal-ﬁred and could run at 20 miles per hour.
The train, which ran on a circular track about 100 meters long,aroused the curiosity of the Japanese people at the time, and it wasrecorded in Commodore Perry's diary that everyone wanted to ride onthe train.
The train brought by Commodore Perry opened the eyes of Japanesepeople to the situation of railways overseas, especially the aspect ofrailways as industrial infrastructure. As a result, the Meiji government
was able to open the ﬁrst full-scale railway between Shinbashi and
Yokohama, a distance of about 29 km, as early as 1872.
Subsequent investment by the public and private sectors led to theconstruction of a nationwide railway network originated from Tokyo,
which stimulated urban development centered on railway stations.

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Against the backdrop of these developments, Japan's railwayrelated technology has made remarkable progress.
In 1964, the world's ﬁrst high-speed railway, the Shinkansen, wasput into service, leading to the development of the superconducting
maglev Shinkansen, which runs at a speed of 500 km/h.

In the 1980s, Japanese railway technology made its way back to theUnited States.
In 1983, Kawasaki Railcar Manufacturing co. delivered its R62railcars to the New York Metro.
Since then, Japanese-made railcars have been operated intransportation systems throughout the U.S., some of which have been
produced by the local factories in the U.S., contributing to the creationof jobs in the country.

In Washington, D.C., where Hitachi Rail has a contract to deliver 256
cars to Washington Metro, a production facility will begin operations
this summer in Washington County, Maryland.
A mock-up of the "Fleet of Future" vehicle that will be manufactured
there was on display at the National Mall until last week.
We hope you were able to see it.
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The new vehicle, which has been designed with a variety of customeroriented features, will be in service in the near future, and we can't wait
to see it in service for the residents of the capital city.

With this historical relationship as a backdrop, both the U.S. andJapan have beneﬁted from the railway system.
Nowadays, the signiﬁcance of railways is attracting renewed
attention in order to address new challenges unique to modern society,such as achieving carbon neutrality society, maintaining and securing
urban functions such as easing traffic congestion and maintaining
service during disasters, and economic growth in a mature society.
Needless to say, the relationship between the two countries in theﬁeld of railways is becoming closer and more important, as evidenced
by the participation of Japanese companies in urban rail and highspeed rail projects, such as the Texas Highspeed Railway, in the UnitedStates.

At today's symposium, we would like to invite Japanese and U.S.
government officials and practitioners involved in the railway businessto discuss this new signiﬁcance given to railways, the social andeconomic value they create, and sustainable railways.
I would like to consider these issues together with you.
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Finally, I would like to conclude my remarks by expressing my hopethat today's symposium will contribute to further application of therailway system in order to solve social issues that both countries facein common, and that it will lead to further development of U.S.-Japanfriendship.

Thank you very much for your kind attention today.

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