Research theme
| Climate Change and intercity transport strategy |
| Research fellow |
Mr. Hiroshi OOYAMA, Dr. Surya Raj ACHARYA , Mr. Taekyu KIM, Dr. Ryo ITOH, Mr. Keiji KARIYAZAKI, Dr. Mio SUZUKI |
Object+
Background |
1. Objective
This international collaborative study aims to examine the current situation and key issues of climate change and intercity transportation. During the study, specific analyses are conducted over various aspects of intercity transportation, such as social effectiveness, economic impacts and implications for climate change. The study output is intended, among others, to present strategic direction and concrete polices for the intercity transport system of Japan.
2. Background
A lively debate on the issue of global environment has been initiated worldwide in the backdrop of 15th United Nations Convention on Climate Change contracting party meetings (COP15) of December 2009, the key agenda of which is to set concrete actions for reducing greenhouse gases to the desired level in future.
In Japan, for GHG emission, transport sector ranks second biggest contributor, next to the industrial sector. Hence, GHG reduction in the transport sector is an important issue. Recent trend suggests that aviation mode, which relatively emits more CO2 on per passenger-km basis, has been increasing its market share for medium and long-distance intercity travel. This issue needs to be urgently addressed for reducing nationwide total CO2 emission. On the other hand, interest in high-speed rail system is rapidly increasing among policy makers all over the world as the system can provide intercity transport services with relatively much smaller CO2 burden, especially for travel corridors with higher population density. However, despite such significant linkages between intercity transport and GHG emission, there are only few studies on this theme. Therefore, a comprehensive study focusing on all relevant issues in the interface of intercity transport and climate change concerns is required.
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