Policy Bureau - General Principles of Universal Design Policy - II.Basic concept of the general principles of universal design policy 3. Public transportation that all people can use safely and smoothly

Policy Bureau

General Principles of Universal Design Policy

II.Basic concept of the general principles of universal design policy

3. Public transportation that all people can use safely and smoothly

Public transportation plays a big role in creating an environment in which all people can move freely and safely, but one problem remains in this area: inadequate efforts to realize seamlessness*6 that guarantees highly convenient smooth overall travel including transferring between public transportation systems.
This requires measures to further improve public transportation so that all people can use public transportation systems without difficulty.

(1)	Greater convenience and smoother transfers at transportation system connections
	It is necessary that railway stations and other connection points between transportation systems be more convenient and that it be easier to transfer at such connection points in order to achieve overall public transportation that everyone can use smoothly, but there are cases where, because various companies and other management organizations that are in mutually competitive relationships provide and manage these connection points, their failure to cooperate sufficiently severely delays the improvement of such connection points. It is, therefore, necessary to encourage cooperative efforts by these diverse concerned parties.

(2)	Encouraging cooperation between transportation companies and regional residents
	Regional residents have begun to independently view increasing the convenience of public transportation as their responsibility and to undertake measures to achieve this goal through cooperation between public transportation companies. Because such active involvement by regional residents encourages them to use public transportation, it is essential to provide further encouragement to measures undertaken cooperatively by transportation companies and regional residents.

(3)	Need to provide information about public transportation
	To improve the overall level of public transportation, administrators must promote the provision of a wide range of information concerning model measures. In addition, systems to objectively evaluate whether or not the public transportation services that transportation companies provide conform to the perspectives of users are needed, and the provision of information including that applying IT must be improved and expanded.

(4)	Promoting comprehensive measures
	To achieve smoother use of public transportation in a region, it is essential for all concerned organizations in that region to work cooperatively to undertake comprehensive projects linked to the provision of public facilities, traffic regulations, revitalization of city centers, and urban renewal planning, and other projects.

Seamlessness: Seamlessness when applied to public transportation means that taking both physical and non-physical measures to eliminate "seams" where passengers transfer between transportation systems and "seams" where passengers walk and get on and off vehicles inside transportation terminals lets them travel from their departure points to their destinations very smoothly and extremely conveniently.