Silviase/jgov_v1.4_full_ann huggingface dataset:
## Using Probe Information

Probe information is information gathered from a variety of data from each vehicle, such as its location, speed, and acceleration to the front, rear, left and right. Collecting probe information from each vehicle allows for better understanding and provision of more detailed traffic information to be used for traffic congestion countermeasures, traffic safety, and disaster response (Figure 2-1-34).

For example, the traffic jam starting around the Yokkaichi IC in Mie prefecture was previously thought to be due to the merging at the IC juncture. However, when they used probe information to identify the exact cause of the traffic congestion, they found that the main cause was the sag (the recessed section from downhill switching to uphill) before the IC branching off. From now on, we hope to use results from these analyses to fine-tune countermeasures to continually facilitate smooth traffic flow.

Figure 2-1-34

Source) MLIT

## (The Soft Approach for Efficient Use)

## ☑ Introducing the Simultaneous Take-Off and Landing Method at Narita Airport

To ensure safety for aircraft take-off and landing, each aircraft must maintain a certain distance from other aircrafts (the current international standard is 3-6 miles (5-11km) apart) (Figure 2-1-35). For this reason, previously at the Narita Airport, when there were multiple departures scheduled, the aircraft departing from Runway B had to wait until the aircraft departing from Runway A was a certain distance away before taking off, which was a very limiting way of operating. However, to keep up with the increase in the demand for air travel, they have been looking for a simultaneous take-off and landing method to allow for independent take-off and landing operations at the same time for both runways A and B.

There are established international rules (ICAO guidelines) for introducing the simultaneous take-off and landing method, and though Narita Airport fulfilled the requirements in the simultaneous landing guidelines $ ^{Note\ 37} $ , it could not meet the requirement in the simultaneous take-off guidelines for the flight course to diverge by over 15 degrees after take-off, as branching out the flight route would expand the noise pollution impact area (Figure 2-1-36).

These guidelines allow for the aviation authority of each country to determine exceptions after safety has been verified. Therefore, MLIT conducted safety verification and determined that as long as Narita Airport took some risk reduction measures (like setting up a control seat to monitor the route departure after take-off) that it would be

Source) MLIT

Figure 2-1-36

International Rules for Simultaneous Take-Off

Source) MLIT

possible to have simultaneous take-offs, which allowed Narita Airport to implement simultaneous take-off and landing in
October 2011.

As a result of introducing the simultaneous take-off and landing system, the number of annual departure and arrival slots at Narita Airport has increased from 220,000 slots in October 2010 to 235,000 slots. As evident from this example, there are some cases where it is possible to make take-off and landing more efficient without making any improvements to the runways by reviewing the previous take-off and landing operations. Furthermore, with additional improvements to facilities, like new taxiways and tarmac expansion, the number of annual departure and arrival slots increased to 270,000 by March 2013.

As seen in the above example, by using new technology—starting with IT technology—it is possible to use the existing social infrastructures more efficiently. Also, even if there are no improvements made to the hard assets, an idea for how the existing social infrastructures can be used more efficiently may be found by reviewing current operations. The expectation going forward is that social infrastructure will proactively use innovations to use social infrastructure ever more wisely.

## 3 Efficiency through Integration

As mentioned above, Japan is facing a historically rare, rapid population decline and aging. In spite of this, we need to continue to grow and improve the people’s quality of life. To do so, we must achieve sustainable growth by making advances in the way urban spaces are formed; a formation in which social infrastructures can be used more wisely. One of the concrete measures for this is an urban structure in a consolidated formation (compact city). Realizing compact city formations is expected to have the impacts of creating healthier, more comfortable lives, improve the financial and environmental sustainability of cities, and provide underlying support for the local economy. We will explore the concept, effects, and examples of compact cities in the following sections.

## (1) The Concept of a Compact City

The definition of compact city varies depending on the context and the person advocating it, but in general the term indicates that the urban structure is characterized by the following: 1. high density in close proximity development pattern, 2. urban areas connected by public transportation, and 3. easy access to workplace and local services $ ^{Note 38} $ . In actuality there are several types of these compact cities. Some examples of the different formations are: ‘Multipolar Network Type,’ ‘String of Beads Type,’ and ‘Hydrangea Type’ (Figure 2-1-37).
Thus far, various initiatives have been put forth by national and local governments to develop compact cities. However, according to results from the ‘Public Awareness Survey,’ about half the people polled answered, “I have never heard of it,” when asked if they knew about compact cities, so it is difficult to say that the concept is widely recognized (Figure 2-1-38). On the other hand though, there are many people who are sympathetic to the thinking behind compact cities, and about half the people thought that initiatives for compact cities are important (Figure 2-1-39). Therefore it may be construed that compact cities will be expected to contribute greatly to solving the problems of cities in the future.

Interest in the compact city structure is also increasing among local governments. The number of organizations that have set—or are planning to set—the compact city as the future city model for the master plan of city planning are starting to increase (Figure 2-1-40).
## (2) The Impact of a Compact City

There is a wide range of advantages to be gained from the compact city formation. One such is the fact that having a certain concentration of population residing in a specific area helps improve the sustainability of welfare and commercial services that support daily life, while access to such services is made easier by either being within walking distance or accessible by public transportation. This also makes getting out of the house much easier, which helps promote healthy living; another positive result. There is also an impact on the financial front, in that public services like snow removal and home care provision can be made more efficient, as well as relocated, and consolidated, which will help reduce government spending. A third impact is that with people walking or using public transport more, the excessive dependence on automobiles is decreased, which results in a positive environmental impact through the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Finally, with the vitalization of the service industry and with people going out more in general, the overall consumption rate would go up, leading to a positive economic impact.

When we actually posed some questions regarding a compact city on the ‘Public Awareness Survey,’ several people answered, “No impact can be expected,” but there were many that answered, “The elderly and others who have difficulty using a car would be able to access shopping districts and use public facilities” or “The operation, maintenance/repair and upgrade costs for roads, sewage, and other social infrastructures can be reduced,” or “The increased use of public transportation will lead to a reduction in environmental impact.” From this we can see that compact cities are recognized
as being well-balanced in terms of living, financial, and environmental impacts (Figure 2-1-42).

Related to maintenance, management and upgrading costs, staffing and operational costs for existing public facilities can also be expected to decrease, with collective residences and lifestyle supporting services being in a consolidated location. According to, ‘Survey on Maintenance, Management and Upgrade of Social Capital’ conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for local governments nationwide, approximately 60% of local governments answered that they are interested in reassessing (abolishing, consolidating, etc.) their existing social infrastructures, particularly for social infrastructures that are community buildings like educational and health facilities that would benefit from reorganization (Figure 2-1-43). As introduced in Section 3, there are already initiatives in place for reviewing public facilities. However, going forward, in addition to reducing the size of the urban structure, we will be expected to advance the relocation and consolidation of community buildings and cut costs for maintenance, management and upgrade work.

The analysis below will focus on the economic effect (improvement in labor productivity, efficiency in administrative costs) of having a compact city.

## (Improving Labor Productivity through Accumulation)

The accumulation of the population in cities will make formation of various industries easier, which in turn will lead to a variety of goods and services being provided. Also, with various industries being present, the economy of scale and economy of scope will work to increase the productivity of workers.

In fact, when we look at the relationship between population density and labor productivity by designated cities in each prefecture there is a positive correlation, with a tendency of areas with higher population density having higher labor productivity (Figure 2-1-44).

If the population accumulates to a city and the population density rises in said city, there seems to be a marked effect,
information as a base for moving forward in city planning.

There are now movements toward quantitatively analyzing these effects of becoming a compact city during city planning. One such example is the city of Utsunomiya in Tochigi prefecture.

The city of Utsunomiya is a central city with a population of about 500,000 people and, like other cities, is facing challenges like having an aging population, aging of its social infrastructures, and a decrease in the sense of vibrancy in the city center area. To solve some of these issues, the city of Utsunomiya has put in their '5 $ ^{th} $ ' Utsunomiya City Comprehensive Plan,' the goal to work towards having the city

become the ‘Network Type Compact City (Collaborative and Concentrated City)’ formation (Figure 2-1-47). For Utsunomiya City, the effect estimates for when they move forward with making the urban structure to be more compact is being done by Morimoto (2011) $ ^{39} $ . The three scenarios being analyzed for becoming compact are Trend Type, Urban Residential Type, and Network Type.

The different scenarios are as follows: Trend Type is if the current city formation is maintained until the year 2035; the Urban Residential Type is if the population in the urbanization control area were to be aggregated to urban areas; and the Network Type is if the city center were to remain the core and a base set up in each region $ ^{40} $ .

The results for the estimated taxes and city facility maintenance and management cost by year 2035 for each scenario is on Figure 2-1-48 and Figure 2-1-49 $ ^{Note\ 41} $ . The Network Type, which is the closest scenario to what the city of Utsunomiya is planning, is estimated to have lower taxes than the current tax amount while the decline is less than the Trend Type, and the decline in the city facility maintenance and management cost is also less than the Trend Type. This result shows that both in terms of taxes and city facility maintenance cost, the Network Type is a more desirable city formation than the Trend Type $ ^{Note\ 42} $ .

Source) Akinori Morimoto "A Study on the Effect the Compactness of a City has on the Environment and Finance" Volume 46 of "City Planning Papers"
Currently, Utsunomiya City—while listening to the opinions of experts—is trying to fine-tune its estimation model by doing things like checking plan consistency, and quantitatively measuring the effects of the compact city advancing in Utsunomiya City.

There will probably be more initiatives towards compact city planning in each region in the future, but in order to increase the understanding of residents and the feasibility of a compact city, it is important to show the quantitative effects of compact city planning.

Source) Akinori Morimoto “A Study on the Effect the Compactness of a City has on the Environment and Finance” Volume 46 of “City Planning Papers”

## (3) Example of Compact City Initiative

## ☑ Compact City in Kumamoto City

The city of Kumamoto is an ordinance-designated city with a population of 739,420 people as of March 2014.

During the high economic growth period the population grew steadily, but the same time the urban area expanded at an even higher level, making the population density in DID districts fall rapidly, resulting in a low-density urban spread. After the latter half of the 1980's, the population density in the DID district has remained flat with the regression of the population to the city center area due to construction of high-rise housing, a result of most of the land within the urban areas already being occupied (Figure 2-1-50). Given the population decline in the foreseeable future, there is a growing concern for the decline in the vitality of the city from the decrease in tax revenue and hollowing of the built up areas.

As a response to these types of concerns, Kumamoto

City is setting the polynuclear cooperative urban

development as the direction for new city planning, having put forth the basic policy for this in the City Master Plan.

In this Master Plan, they have set the future vision as, ‘A Vibrant Polynuclear Cooperative City with Lush Greenery and Water and Supported by Various City Services (Becoming a Compact City)’ and will work actively towards becoming a city with: 1. Highly convenient public transportation for supporting residential functions, 2. Integrated city functions for city center areas and regional hubs, 3. Well-developed public transportation network (Figure 2-1-51).
In order to support residential functions, the area within a 500m radius from a railway station or city rail stop or within a 300m radius from a bus stop will be designated as the residence promoting area. The plan is to create an attractive city formation by having these areas receive support to help draw residency to these areas, as well as raising the standard of public transportation, and developing pedestrian and cyclist lanes.

In regards to integrated city functions, the initiatives will be divided into those within the approximately 415ha that constitutes the city center area, and the regional hubs $ ^{Note 43} $ . For the city center areas, the city is planning to develop complex facilities for bus terminals, businesses, housing, and MICE facilities. For regional hubs, the city is considering setting up a transit facility for core public transportation and feeder bus lines.

For the public transportation network, as part of enhancing functionality of the core public transportation axis, the city is considering the deployment of an express bus service going in to the city center area (Figure 2-1-52) and introducing ultra-low-floor vehicles to the city rail to enhance the transportation capacity. In addition, by cooperating with the bus operators to improve the competitive routes and promote efforts towards restructuring the bus route network, the city aims to have a

well-developed public transportation network that connects the areas from the city center to the regional hubs.

Kumamoto City’s goal is to prevent the decline of population density within the residency promoting area by 2025 through implementing the above initiatives (Figure 2-1-53).

Note 43 Set as areas that many people will gather as a part of their daily lives, and within 800m from railway stations and bus stops, a strategic point for transportation.
capitalization is upwards of JPY10.4 trillion (as of January 30, 2013) (Figure 2-2-4, Figure 2-2-5).

The Shift in the Number of Infrastructure Funds Listed Overseas

The Listed Infrastructure Fund Exchange-specific Distribution Ratio

Listing exchange	Aggregate market price (100 million yen)	Distribution ratio
Australia Stock Exchange	37,051	35.5%
Toronto Stock Exchange	25,082	24.1%
New York Stock Exchange	19,993	19.2%
Singapore Stock Exchange	13,054	12.5%
London Stock Exchange	6,148	5.9%
Korea Stock Exchange	1,848	1.8%
New Zealand Stock Exchange	1,096	1.1%
Total	104,272	100%

(Note) Aggregate market price is the closing price of Jan 30^{th}, 2013, which has been converted to yen using the exchange rate of that day.

Source) Developed by MLIT from Tokyo Stock Exchange "Report by the Study Group on the Listed Infrastructure Market"

In regards to non-listed infrastructure funds, each year there are about 40 cases of new composition, at a scale of about USD30 billion total (approximately JPY3 trillion: calculated as USD1=JPY100). The total amount from 2006 to 2013 had grown to a scale of USD243 billion total (approximately JPY24.3 trillion) (Figure 2-2-6).

Next, if we look at the configuration of institutional investors that invest in infrastructure funds, pension funds accounted for about 40%. This is thought to be based on the fact that the characteristics of infrastructure funds—the fact that a steady cash flow can be expected over a long-term, that correlation to other invested assets (such as stocks and bonds) is low, and that they have a strong resistance to inflation—matches the operational stance of pension funds (Figure 2-2-7).

As you can see, there is a growing trend overseas in the scale of investment in infrastructure funds, and there are various sources for providing funds, from individuals to institutional investors such as pension funds and banks.

Meanwhile, if we look at the national situation, there are no track records of full-fledged infrastructure fund compositions within Japan. This is due to the fact that many of Japan’s PFI projects use the ‘Service Purchasing Type,’ which is related to the fact that the main funding method is borrowing from financial institutions. However, as more opportunities arise for promoting financially independent type PFI as mentioned earlier, the efforts toward setting up an infrastructure fund market is moving forward.
In October 2013, the public-private fund, the Private Finance Initiative Promotion Corporation of Japan (PFI promotion organization) was established, with the goal to provide financial assistance to PFI projects, particularly for the concession method of financially independent type projects (Figure 2-2-8). For financially independent type PFI projects—of which are still only a few examples—this corporation makes the private funding easier by risk money contribution to PFI projects (primarily by investing in preferred stock or subordinated loans), which serves the purpose of ‘priming,’ making it more conducive to developing the private infrastructure investment market.

The Japan Exchange Group’s goal is to establish the listed infrastructure fund market during FY2014, and get the first issue projects listed by the end of 2015. If this market is successfully established, it will be possible for

individual investors to invest in infrastructure investments through the market, the same way they would invest in equity investments. As part of the effort to establish this market, the Financial Services Agency is in the process of reviewing institutional reforms, so that concession rights of public facilities and renewable energy power generation facilities can be added to specific assets that investment trusts and investment corporations can invest in as major investments. Meanwhile, the Japan Exchange Group is examining the details of listing system with the view to have a wide range of infrastructures available for investment in the future.

When asked regarding investment intentions for social infrastructure investment products in the ‘Public Awareness Survey,’ 19.1% replied either, ‘I want to invest,’ or ‘I might want to invest,’ while the majority, 45.6%, replied, ‘I cannot say either way.’ From these results, we can see that there is very low awareness of this investment product, keeping people from making this investment decision. On the other hand, reasons for wanting to invest were identified as stable profit and ease of understanding the investment, combined with an interest in contributing to the maintenance and management of infrastructure through investing. This shows that not only will this meet a need for an investment product, but raise the participation awareness towards the maintenance and management of infrastructure (Figure 2-2-9).

Interest in Investing into the Financial Investment Product that Invests in Social Infrastructure
In addition to this, there has been a lot of debate about infrastructure investment with public pensions. While pension funds are the main source of infrastructure investment in other countries, in Japan, the world's largest pension fund, the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), comprised of employees' pension and national pension—which operates a reserve of JPY129 trillion—currently invests 55% of the assets under management in domestic bonds. However, they have started looking into diversifying to other fund investment opportunities, including infrastructure investment (Figure 2-2-10).

From the above information, we expect that the types of funding providers for Japan’s PFI projects will be expanding, and that the components for future expansion of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) market have also been well-placed.

## (Impact of PFI)

Here we will pull together what will be the effects of the PFI market expansion. Some of the effects of using PFI are: economic revitalization, reducing financial burden, and raising service standards.

First, using PFI is expected to lead to economic revitalization by creating business opportunities for the private sector, and by prompting private investment. When we consider Japan’s financial flow by looking at Bank of Japan’s “Flow of Funds,” the shift in the financial surplus or deficit of the major economic sectors (difference between saving and investment in one year) shows that since the latter half of the 1990’s there has been a continual lack of funds in the government sector, which has been compensated for by surplus funds from the households sector and the private non-financial corporations (corporate) sector (Figure 2-2-11). Furthermore, if we look at the private financial institutions that mediate the funds, the loan-deposit ratio is falling, while the amount of outstanding Japanese Government Bonds is increasing (Figure 2-2-12). This means that while deposit is building up, the capital requirements of companies are stagnating. The social security costs have increased for the government, and the government must depend on government bonds as a financial resource, due to a decrease in tax revenue. This indicates that the investment of funds has shifted from lending to companies to holding government bonds.

For this reason, we believe that expanding the use of PFI would create business opportunities for the private sector and