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Railway passenger transport in fiscal 1973 increased, in the number or
passenger transported, by 1.6 per cent to 17, 056 million persons and, in passenger-kilometers,
by 4.2 per cent to 312,900 million passenger-kilometers over the previous fiscal
year.
(Table l-(l)-1)(Table
l-(l)-2)
Volume of transport by all the major trunk lines of Japanese National Railways
in fiscal 1973 went up compared with those in the previous fiscal year, including
a 15.2 per cent increase in transported passenger-kilometers over the previous
fiscal year by the Shinkansen. Whereas the volumes of transport by local lines
of JNR continued to record declining trends, thereby making such local lines
uneconomical, being mainly dependent upon commuters and students attending schools.
Local private railways of a medium or a small scale are losing their passengers
in recent years owing to the phenomenon of under-population and to motorization,
and too idle lines are being abolished.(Table
l-(l)-3)
In major cities, the transport demand centering around commuter transport
continues to increase and time required for commuting tends to be prolonged,
owing to the never-ending concentration of the population on cities and expansion
of urban areas.
To improve the present condition of transport mentioned above, development
and expansion of transport capacity are promoted in major trunk lines of JNR
by employing such measures as the double-tracking of railwaylines, installation
and improvement of terminals and strengthening of railway tracks, and also the
Nationwide Shinkansen Railway Network Prqject is being advanced. The progress
of the Shinkansen Network Project is as follows: The section between Tokyo an
dHakata is now on operation; three sectionsareunder constmction；nVeSeCtions
have their devlopment plans finalized; and twelve sections are still on the
stage of basic plans.
(Table l-(l)-4)
The Shinkansen has posed noise and vibration problems, and various countermeasures
are being carried out, i.e., measures against sound sources such as construction
of sound-proof walls and sound-proofing'work on steel girders and measures for
preventing obstructions such as sound-proofing work on dwellings and compensation
for moving.
To cope with the congestion of commuter and student transport in major cities,
JNR is carrying out an increase in the number of tracks of major commuter and
student lines, double-tracking of lines that run througJI Peri pheral areas
of major cities, an increase in the number of passenger coaches in a train,
and new establishment of rolling stock bases. Private railways also have taken
up measures for increasing transport capacity such as construction of new extension
lines to reach city centers, double-tracking, quadruple tracking, and an increase
in the number of passenger coaches in a train, and are also endeavoring to achieve
mutual use of tracks by different railway companies in order to secure direct
transit. (Table l-(l)-5)
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