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Now seeing the trend of population in the local area in these years, the
development of the local cities of the class of population of 200,000 or more
is distiguished, while in the depopulated area, the decreasing trend of population
is continuing. Thus, some of the local cities where the population is increasing
are showing the road traffic congestion as in the large cities due to the increasing
private automobiles in the local area as shown in Table
2-1-5 and are in need of a system of mass transit such as railways to cope
with the increasing transport demand.
Next, in the depopulated area, scarce demand for transport due to decrease
of the population and increasing private automobiles have caused to decrease
the number of passengers carried by means of railways and bus as indicated in
Fig. 2-1-6. As the result, many
of these transport facilities are no longer profitable, leading to degradation
of the service such as reduction of the frequency of operation or suspension
or a abolishment of lines. In the sea and air lines to remote islands, the management
is worsened from the decrease of the transport volume.
ln view of such situation and for securing the means of transport for local
inhabitants, supports were extended to the smaller commercial railways, local
buses and sea and air lines to remote islands through subsidies for deficit
and equipment, while measures were taken according to the situation of the respective
areas such as conversion of the railway to bus transport, shift of line buses
to city, town or village substituted buses, etc. Particularly, the problem of
maintaining the bus lines in the local area is not only limited to the depopulated
area but extending to the local area as a whole. Thus, in fiscal 1975, the subsidy
system has been expanded greatly.
The traffic for living in the local area will be secured by such measures
provided there is a cooperation extended from the side of local inhabitants
including the local public organizations. However, difficult problems such as
further aggravation of the management for the enterprisers due to increasing
labor cost and financial difficulty of the local public organizations Still
remain to be resolved.
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