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The number of trucks owned had been increasing rapidly in Japan. However, the growth rate became small during the latter half of 1960s. The average annual growth has been 3.7% since 1970. The number of trucks owned increased 2.2 times during the past ten years, reaching 10.21 million by the end of fiscal 1975. The ratio of trucks among the total number of motor vehicles owned decreased to 35.0% because of the rapid popularization of private passenger cars.
The transport volume of trucks increased until fiscal 1972, but thereafter
it began to decrease. The transport volume in fiscal 1975 fell below the fiscal
1970 level. The distance range of 1 - 10 km in which private trucks has a share
exceeding 80% accounts for about a half of the total transport volume of trucks
and the half of the transport volume in this range is accounted for by gravel,
sand, stone and wastes for which the Private trucks have an overwhelming weight.
Small-sized private trucks are used considerably for a incidental business
except transportation such as collecting payments, maintenance and other services,
installation and assembly. Trucks below 5 tons account for 71.6% of ordinary
trucks except transport and communication business. Large trucks above 5 tons
are used mostly in special industrial fields, such as construction and non-metallic
mining. Ordinary trucks of common carrier (only 5.2% of all trucks owned, 350
thousand trucks owned, of which 23 thousands are dump trucks) account for 51.7%
of the total transport ton-kilometers by all trucks.
Private ordinary trucks (11.3% of all trucks owned, 820 thousand trucks
owned, of which about 240 thousands are dump trucks) account for 34.6% of the
total transport kilo-meters by all trucks (Fig.
2-2-3). However, they are used mostly for carrying special commodities in
special industries, as described in the foregoing.
Modernization of Truck Transportation
Trucks of common carriers are more economical than private trucks. They have
the merit of saving transport cost and suppressing total traffic volume by minimizing
the number of trucks used etc. Effort should be made to replace private transport
by transport by common carrier. It is necessary to identify qualitative requirements
of transport demand for private trucks and to improve the services of trucks
of common carriers to meet such requirements in replaceable fields. The separation
of trunk line transport from urban local transport and the systematization of
collection and delivery etc. have been promoted to respond to the large cargo
transport demand in the urban area, improve transport efficiency, stabilize
the price of commodities and smooth urban life. Sharing and modernization should
be promoted further in the truck business.
The importance of trucks has increased in the domestic transport system since the latter half of 1960s. On the other hand, the share of the railways declined rapidly. So trucks of common carriers exceed railways in every distance range (Fig. 2-2-4). The growth of truck transport is accounted by response to the qualitative advancement and diversification of transport demands, construction of new highways etc. and car ferries, development of various trucks, eager responses of the truck enterprises as seen in the distribution processing and substitution of stock management etc. to answer the requirements of the industries for efficient distribution and so on. The declination of railway transport is accounted by the change in industry and distribution structure, the delay of the modernization of their transport system, the distrust by shippers due to strikes etc. Although the transport volume of railways has been decreasing, they have some obvious advantages connected with labor and energy efficiency. In fiscal 1975, transport volume of railways exceeded that of trucks in the field of regular and mass transportation of cereals, fertilizers, pulp, chemicals and cement etc. in overland transport. So the Japanese National Railways should work, as before for the full utilization of the railway characteristics by specializing and modernizing in the fields suitable for direct transport system such as transport by commodities.
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