Research in Transportation Economics xxx (2016) 1e7

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Research in Transportation Economics

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Social capital and local public transportation in Japan

Kiyohito Utsunomiya
Kansai University, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 29 October 2015
Received in revised form
7 February 2016
Accepted 20 February 2016
Available online xxx

Local public transportation except in metropolitan areas in Japan faces operating difculties due to
business decits. In recent years, central and local governments have taken social benets into account to
support local public transportation, but social benets calculated in their cost-benet analyses seem to
be insufcient to evaluate them. Especially since the great earthquake in 2011, Japanese people have
begun to rethink the importance of network and trust in neighborhoods, which can be called as social
capital, based on mobility. Therefore, focusing on social capital, this paper tries to nd the role of local
public transportation beyond social benets. Specically, it makes an empirical analysis on the relationship between the indexes of social capital and local bus services using cross section data. As a result,
network and participation indexes standing for social capital in each prefecture positively correlate with
the level of local bus services. Also, according to our survey research in Toyama, introduction of a new
LRT line is likely to have considerably changed the activities of residents along the line and has tended to
promote more opportunities to come into contact with others than before. Those studies shed light on
the role of public transportation from the standpoint of social capital.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

JEL:
A13
R40
R42
Z13
Keywords:
Local public transportation
Social capital
Social exclusion
Japan
Transport policy

1. Introduction
Local public transportation in Japan is, in principle, provided by
ordinary private companies on a self-paying basis. As a result, many
services in regional areas have been closed for decades due to
business decits. In the 2000s, declining population as well as
increased motorization has worsened the situation. Central and
local governments support local public transportation to some
degree, but government subsidies are not sufcient to sustain these
networks. Even though governments take not only operational
prots but also social benets into account, it is often the case that
even those benets calculated in their cost-benet analyses do not
cover social costs.
However, another idea seems to have gradually become widespread in recent years that local public transportation might have a
potentiality to revitalize regional societies. For example, the Sanriku Railway in the Tohoku region of Japan, which suffered devastating damage from the great earthquake in 2011 succeeded in
reopening all of the line in 2013. Local governments and people
strongly supported the reconstruction of the railway and celebrated

E-mail address: t110025@kansai-u.ac.jp.

its reopening ceremony in tears. As far as I know, there was no

calculation based on cost benet analysis.
Even in Japan, nobody criticizes this reopening as an unscientic
decision. This is not just because local public transportation is
essential for local people in general, but because people come to
think of public transportation as means to bond and bridge people
and society. Kizuna, which means emotional ties and bonds in
Japanese, was selected as the word of the year in 2011, and
reopening public transportation was regarded as a symbol of ties
and bonds. In other words, consciously or unconsciously, Japanese
think about the role of social capital (SC), reciprocity, social networks and trust, through their harsh experience of the disaster
caused by the earthquake. Some sociologists and economists often
use the term social capital in describing Japanese social basis for
well-organized activities in disastrous areas.
So far, however, there has not been much research into the
relationship between SC and public transportation. Empirical analyses in this eld are needed. Therefore, this paper explores quantitative analyses on the relationship between SC and local public
transportation.
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 outlines the situation of local public transportation and SC in Japan, and Section 3
briey reviews previous literature. In Sections 4 and 5, we

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2016.02.001
0739-8859/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Utsunomiya, K., Social capital and local public transportation in Japan, Research in Transportation Economics
(2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2016.02.001

K. Utsunomiya / Research in Transportation Economics xxx (2016) 1e7

analyse the relationship between SC and local public transportation

in Japan using macro cross-sectional data by prefecture and micro
survey data collected in Toyama city. Section 6 discusses the results
and conclusions.
2. Overview of local public transportation and social capital
in Japan
Local public transportation in Japan has drastically declined in
the past decades. Bus services have decreased by 11,000 route-km
from 2006 to 2011, which is 2.7 percent of the total bus services
in Japan. Regarding railways, more than 650 km of lines, also representing 2.7 percent of the total railway operation, have been
abandoned since 2000. The main reason for these closures is that
patronage has decreased due to the decline in population as well as
increased motorization, but some of the lines in regional cities were
closed in spite of carrying quite a few passengers e mainly students. Private transportation companies can, in principle, freely
discontinue their services following certain procedures after the
deregulation in the early 2000s, closing their loss-making lines
even though they may be crowded in peak hours.
Central and local governments have not ignored the problem at
all. In 2007, the Act on Revitalization and Rehabilitation of Local
Public Transportation was enacted, and several programs to support regional railways, buses, and ships have been provided by
central and local governments since then. The ofcial project to
support upgrading tramways to LRT (Light Rail Transit) systems
was also established at that time. Social benets have been more
seriously taken into consideration to support local public
transportation.
However, ordinary people were generally against injecting
public money into local public transportation. For example, Towada
Kanko Electric Railway Company in Aomori prefecture closed its
railway line in 2012 because local governments along the line
rejected its request to use public money for maintenance. At that
time the governor of Towada city said, tax payers do not accept to
use public money to support one of private companies. It is a
typical phrase in Japan. People take it for granted that public
transportation should be protable. Local governments were also
reluctant to support public transportation because of their nancial
difculties. Furthermore, costs to revitalize and rehabilitate local
public transportation are often much higher than social benets
calculated based on the ofcial manual. As a result, the number of
low-budget community bus services increased, but local public
transportation networks continued to deteriorate in regional areas
outside metropolitan areas. No LRT system has been introduced
other than the one in Toyama city.
Statistically, areas without public transportation, where there is
neither a bus stop within 500 m, nor a train station within 1 km,
amount to 30.9 percent of habitable land in Japan. Furthermore,
those areas are expanding not only in rural districts but also in
sprawling suburbs of regional cities. 2.4 million people live in such
areas and rely on only cars for transportation, and some of them,
who cannot drive themselves, are at risk of social exclusion. In fact,
the issue of isolated people with limited access to shopping facilities has become a social problem often discussed in the mass
media in recent years. Social exclusion is becoming a reality among
people without cars in Japan.
On the other hand, the concept of SC became widespread among
academia in Japan in the 2000s. We have a lot of studies by political
scientists, sociologists, economists, etc. Sakamoto (2010) summarizes the prior research, making the following two points. Firstly,
social capital in Japan as a whole steadily grew until the early 1990s,
but it started to decline around the turn of the century and this
trend continues. Secondly, social capital has declined more

remarkably in social networks or participation rather than in trust

and reciprocity. This means that Japanese civic engagement has
gradually diminished both in will and action over the past decade.
It seems to me that SC has been undermined in line with declining
public transportation and expanding social exclusion.
In the meantime, the great earthquake hit Japan on March 11,
2011. Since then, Japanese seem to have begun to think about the
role of SC through their harsh experiences even though they do not
explicitly talk about SC. As I mentioned above, reopening of local
public transportation was celebrated as a symbol of Kizuna,
emotional ties and bonds in Japanese. Serious discussions at that
time led the government to legislate the 2013 Basic Act on Transport Policy, which was enacted as the rst comprehensive legislation on transport policy in Japan. It states that it is important to
appropriately satisfy the basic demands of citizens and others for
transport by allowing the functions of transport to be sufciently
exerted over the future, in light of the fact that transport is
indispensable for stabilizing and improving the lives of the citizens
and for soundly developing the national economy (Article 2).
The establishment of the new law was an epoch-making event.
Some optimistically expect the role of public transport will be
discussed from wider perspectives, including SC, rather than
manualized cost-benet calculations. However, there is little
quantitative evidence of the relationship between public transportation and SC as far as I know. If we show some evidence, it will
be of great use not only for academic people but also policy-makers,
who will reconstruct and revive local public transportation using
public money.
3. Literature
While a great number of studies tackle a variety of issues on SC,
there are not so many discussions from the standpoint of public
transportation. Social exclusion has been a key issue since the late
1990s, and the UK Social Exclusion Unit published its well-known
report in 2003, which has inuenced transport planners and
policy-makers around the world. In those studies, however, the
concept of SC has not necessarily been explicitly discussed.
Regarding studies using the term SC, we can nd Putnam's idea
in Putnam (2000) as a starting point. He criticizes America's cardependent society, describing how increased commuting time
among the residents of a community lowers average levels of civic
involvement even among non-commuters in his inuential book.
Then, Shove (2002) and Urry (2002) explain the role of mobility or
travel using the term SC. In their contexts, SC heavily depends on
mobility, including private cars as well as public transportation.
They argue that, contrary to Putnam's discussion, car travel is also
an important tool for society. Gray, Shaw, and Farrington (2006),
focusing on rural areas, also explains the close relationship between community transport, SC and social exclusion. However,
many transport researchers have been more interested in the role
of public transportation in reducing social exclusion or promoting
social inclusion rather than SC itself, which may appear fuzzy for
some of them.
It is Currie and Stanley (2008) that clearly summarizes theoretical links between SC and public transportation. It presents three
groupings: public transport and mobility, public transport and
livable cities, and traveling with others as social interaction, explains the mechanism of these close linkages, and sets research
challenges, particularly quantitative ones. Then, Stanley, Stanley,
Vella-Brodrick, and Currie (2010) nds that, based on their survey
research and statistical tests, the ability to have good bridging
networks appears to be related to increased trip making and promotion of social inclusion but not necessarily self-assessed wellbeing which satised by bonding networks. Furthermore, Stanley,

Please cite this article in press as: Utsunomiya, K., Social capital and local public transportation in Japan, Research in Transportation Economics
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K. Utsunomiya / Research in Transportation Economics xxx (2016) 1e7

Hensher, Stanley, and Vella-Brodrick (2011a), Stanley et al. (2011b)

and Stanley, Stanley, and Hensher (2012) explore to provide monetary value to an improvement in SC or sense of community, and
shows potentially very high values for an increase in these.
Kamruzzaman et al. (2014) empirically shows that individuals
living in transit oriented development areas (TODs) had signicantly higher level of SC compared with residents of transit adjacent development areas (TADs).
In Japan, some researchers have also become interested in SC
and transportation. Especially, urban planners working for local
communities are keen on the interaction between their mobility
and their SC because they are actually required to design transportation systems together with residents in such areas where
private bus operators previously closed routes. Taniguchi,
Matsunaka, and Shibaike (2008) nds that, using their own proxy
variables for SC, they statistically relate to residents' concern for
community planning including improvement of public transportation. Also, Taniuchi, Inoi, and Nitta (2009) and Ueda, Kanda,
Santo, and Taniguchi (2010) show the relationship between SC
and residents' activities to introduce community transportation,
and between SC and mobility management activities, in which
residents themselves participate in the activities to promote using
public transportation instead of driving.
Against the background of increasing transport-excluded people
in Japan, these studies are quite informative and suggestive.
However, their interests are mainly the effects of SC on residents'
activities to improve mobility or public transportation instead of
public transportation's effects on SC. Besides, their approaches are
only based on micro data, and nobody has explored macro analysis
in this eld. Therefore, the next section starts to introduce our
analysis using macro data sets.
4. Macro data analysis
In Japan, we have two national surveys into the conditions of SC.
One was conducted by the Cabinet Ofce of the central government
in 2003, which obtained 3878 samples from all of the prefectures in
Japan. The other was by JRI in 2007 (Japan Research Institute, 2008),
following almost the same framework as the Cabinet Ofce survey,
with 3000 samples. The questionaries are classied into the three
categories of Putnam's denition, trust, network, and reciprocity.
All the answers in each category of prefecture i are averaged as Xi,
and then, in order to show the relative position of each prefecture
in Japan, a prefectural index Pi is calculated using the following
equation,Pi Xi  X=s, wheres is the standard deviation of Xi.
The larger its index is, the higher its degree of SC is. Three indexes,
trust index, network index, and participation index, are obtained by averaging all of the indexes in the respective categories.
Participation index, which consists of answers to questionnaires
about the degree of participation in regional festivals, NPOs, and
other volunteer activities, corresponds to reciprocity as dened by
Putnam.
Focusing on regional local transport, this paper uses 64 data
from two yearly surveys in 32 prefectures outside metropolitan

Table 1
Correlation matrix of indexes.

2003

2007

Trust index
Network index
Participation index
Trust index
Network index
Participation index

Trust index

Network index

Participation index

1.00
0.56
0.44
1.00
0.09
0.12

0.56
1.00
0.55
0.09
1.00
0.53

0.44
0.55
1.00
0.12
0.53
1.00

areas. As shown in Table 1, these indexes in 2003 weakly correlate

with each other, but trust index does not correlate with the others
in 2007. We cannot simply recognize geographical factors behind
their variation.
In order to investigate the relationship between SC and public
transportation, we estimate a prefectural cross-section regression
model with year dummy. Its dependent variable is each SC index
and explanatory variables are bus kilometers per capita, which
represent service levels of local public transportation in regional
areas, from Jidousha yusou toukei nenpou (Automobile transport
statistics annual report) published by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the number of privately
owned cars from the Chiiki kotsu nenpou (Annual report on local
transport) published by the Institution for Transport Studies.
Regarding other factors that may have effects on SC, after testing a
lot of possible variables, we add the data for aging rate and prefectural examination scores, which respectively stand for demographic structure and education level, as signicant explanatory
variables.
Table 2 shows the results. Bus kilometers per capita explain
network index, and participation index at a signicance level of
one percent or ve percent. Indeed SC is inuenced by diversied
factors other than the variables above, but as long as DurbineWatson statistic shows, there is no serous autocorrelation in
the residuals, which reduces the risk of spurious regression due to
missing variables. As described in conceptual framework by prior
researchers, it is natural that service levels of local public transportations relate to residents' networks of local communities,
including neighborhoods, friends and relatives, and their participation in volunteer activities and local festivals for communities.
That is, the relationship between SC and local public transportations is statistically demonstrated, to a certain extent,
although this analysis does not suggest any causality. Regarding
privately owned cars, while it has a signicant positive relation to
participation index at one percent level, it explains trust index
negatively at ve percent level. When people participate in something, they denitely need some kind of mobility, which includes
private cars pointed out by Urry (2002) and Shove (2002). However,
Putnam (2000) negatively describes the role of private cars, which
has undermined SC in the US. The results here might reect on both
aspects caused by private cars.

5. Case study data analysis

5.1. Toyama Light Rail and our survey research
This section introduces our analysis using a micro data set,
which we obtained from our own survey research together with the
Toyama city administration. The purpose of our research is to
determine whether improving public transportation services has a
direct effect on SC. In this respect we chose areas along the Toyama
Light Rail (TLR) line in Toyama city as our best sample. TLR was
introduced in 2006 as the rst LRT system in Japan, and connects JR
Toyama station and the port town of Toyama. The length of the line
is 7.6 km, of which 6.5 km was converted from a conventional local
railway line facing closure. At that time, some of bus services along
the line were also replaced and the public transportation network
was reorganized as a whole. Furthermore, services were greatly
improved not just in infrastructure with barrier-free vehicles and
stops but also in intangible aspects. For example, service frequency
quadrupled from the former hourly service to a 15-minute service,
service hours were extended, with the last train leaving JR Toyama
station at around 11:15 pm instead of the previous 9:30pm, and
discount tickets for seniors were introduced.

Please cite this article in press as: Utsunomiya, K., Social capital and local public transportation in Japan, Research in Transportation Economics
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K. Utsunomiya / Research in Transportation Economics xxx (2016) 1e7

Table 2
Regression results.
Dependent variable

Constant
Bus kilometers
Private cars
Aging rate
Exam scores
Year dummy
S.E. of regression
D.W.
Number of sample

Trust index

Network index

Participation index

Coefcient t-value

Coefcient t-value

Coefcient t-value

2.912
0.013
1.012
0.021
0.030
0.067
0.890
2.500
64

6.305
0.027
1.194
0.007
0.086
0.168
0.604
1.601
64

0.617
1.034
2.454**
1.175
0.577
1.216

4.126***
2.102**
0.306
0.119
2.810***
0.653

13.087
0.033
6.942
0.168
0.068
0.760
0.641
1.991
64

17.868***
3.972***
7.428***
3.741***
8.400***
6.126***

Notes *** and ** show that P values are 1% and 5% or less, respectively.

We set our target on residents who have lived along the TLR
within 500 m since 2005, before its opening, sampled 1300
households randomly from the population of 4,592, and sent them
questionnaires by mail in January 2015. Three questions in the
survey are crucial to this paper as follows:
If you have experienced changes in your own activities after the
opening of TLR, please select all the choices of answers.
If you have experienced changes in your relationship with
other people after the opening of TLR, please select all the
choices of answers.
If you have an option to go by bus using discount tickets instead
of TLR, what discount rate do you accept?
The number of respondents was 471, but it should be noted that
their average age is 66, which reects the age of heads of
households.
5.2. Changes in own activities
Table 3 summarizes the replies (multiple answers allowed) to
our questions about changes in own activities. Respondents
selecting any of something changes dominate with 54.3% of the
total, exceeding no change. More specically about their changes,
drive less is the most, which dominates with a quarter of the total,
followed by go out just for a change of air. Also, when we sum up
four groups related to SC, participate in classes and clubs more
actively, participate in regional festivals more actively,

participate in NPO and other volunteer work more actively, and

go to entertainment such as sports, theater etc. more actively, the
subtotal of these four items, which we name as participate more
actively, amounts to 23.4%.
The breakdown by age shows that 64.1% of respondents under
50 reported something changes, in which drive less is 33.3% and
subtotal of four items, participate more actively, is 12.8%.
Although 47.8% of respondents in their 50s reported no
change, the older they are, the more they reported something
changes. Interestingly, elderly respondents tend to select any of
participate more actively. In short, the opening of TLR is likely to
have considerably changed the lifestyles of residents along the line,
promoting younger people to drive less and older people to
participate in activities related to others more enthusiastically.
Results by frequency of use are shown in Table 4. When we
exclude people, who rarely use TLR, we can nd more and more
people answer something changes in their own activities. It is
notable that 37.2% of the respondents, who ride TLR once a month
or more but less than once a week, answer participate more
actively. This reects that retired people, who constitute more
than half of the respondents in this category, are promoted to
participate in various activities instead of staying at home. Their
average age is 74.
5.3. Changes in relationship with others
Table 5 summarizes the replies (multiple answers allowed) to
our questions about changes in relationship with others. In all
nothing changes constitutes two thirds of the total, but we cannot

Table 3
Changes in own activities by age.
Total

Composition ratio %
Something changes
Participate more actively (choose any of b, c, d, and e)
No change
Others
Ratio to the total respondents %
a Go shopping more often
b Participate in classes and clubs more actively
c Participate in regional festivals more actively
d Participate in NPO and other volunteer works more actively
e Go to entertainment such as sports, theater etc. more actively
f Go out just for a change of air more often
g Read more books and magazines on the train
h Drive less
i Ride a car by others less
j Nothing changes
k Others
Number of sample

By age
Less than 50

50e59

60e69

70 and more than 70

54.3
(23.4)
40.8
4.9

64.1
(12.8)
28.2
7.7

46.3
(11.9)
47.8
6.0

52.6
(27.6)
44.7
2.6

56.8
(26.7)
37.5
5.7

10.4
4.2
5.7
1.1
15.3
18.5
3.0
25.3
9.3
39.3
8.5
471

7.7
0.0
2.6
0.0
10.3
20.5
5.1
33.3
10.3
28.2
15.4
39

4.4
1.5
1.5
0.0
8.8
11.8
10.3
26.5
10.3
47.1
13.2
68

9.7
1.3
9.1
0.6
20.1
14.9
1.3
26.6
7.8
44.2
4.5
154

13.4
8.0
5.9
2.1
15.0
23.5
1.1
24.6
9.1
35.3
8.6
187

Please cite this article in press as: Utsunomiya, K., Social capital and local public transportation in Japan, Research in Transportation Economics
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K. Utsunomiya / Research in Transportation Economics xxx (2016) 1e7

Table 4
Changes in own activities by frequency of use.
Once a week or more

Once a month or more, but less than

once a week

Several times a year

Rarely

(in which) retired or jobless

Composition ratio %
Something changes
Participate more actively (choose any of b, c, d, and e)
No change
Others
Ratio to the total respondents %
a Go shopping more often
b Participate in classes and clubs more actively
c Participate in regional festivals more actively
d Participate in NPO and other volunteer works more actively
e Go to entertainment such as sports, theater etc. more actively
f Go out just for a change of air more often
g Read more books and magazines on the train
h Drive less
i Ride a car by others less
J Nothing changes
k Others
Number of sample

85.6
(25.6)
11.1
3.3

71.3
(37.2)
24.8
3.9

75.4
(43.5)
23.2
1.4

41.9
(20.0)
54.8
3.2

6.5
(1.6)
79.0
14.5

27.5
8.8
5.5
1.1
13.2
35.2
11.0
42.9
15.4
11.0
9.9
91

12.7
6.7
10.4
1.5
25.4
24.6
0.7
41.8
12.7
23.9
6.7
134

12.2
9.5
12.2
2.7
27.0
27.0
0.0
40.5
12.2
21.6
2.7
74

2.5
0.6
4.5
1.3
14.6
10.8
1.3
13.4
6.4
54.1
6.4
157

0.0
0.0
1.5
0.0
0.0
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
72.1
14.7
68

Table 5
Changes in relationship with others by age.
Total

Composition ratio %
Something changes
No change
Others
Ratio to the total respondents %
a Meet friends and acquaintances more often
b Meet relatives more often
c Meet neighborhoods more often
d Expand new networks
e Nothing changes
f Others
Number of sample

By age
Less than 50

50e59

60e69

70-

30.1
66.5
3.3

27.0
67.6
5.4

16.4
83.6
0.0

27.9
70.7
1.4

38.2
56.2
5.6

20.0
4.7
3.6
6.2
63.3
4.5
471

20.5
0.0
2.6
2.6
64.1
10.3
39

5.9
2.9
0.0
7.4
82.4
0.0
68

18.2
3.9
4.5
5.2
67.5
3.2
154

26.7
7.5
4.8
7.5
53.5
5.9
187

ignore something changes with 30.1%, in which meet friends and

acquaintances more often is the most with 20.0%. By age, 38.1% of
respondents over 70 replied something changes. We can nd that
such elderly people meet their relatives as well as friends and acquaintances more often than before. A relatively small number of
people in their 50s replied something changes, which might
reect that they are too busy for their works to spare time for
meeting with others.
By frequency of use shown in Table 6, respondents, who ride TLR
once a week or more, replied something changes with 55.1% of the
subtotal of this user group, exceeding nothing changes.
Respondents, who ride TLR once a month or more but less than once
a week, also replied something changes with 43.3%. This indicates
that people, who have chances to ride TLR, can meet with others
more often than before although these results do not explain any
causalities between chances to ride TLR and to meet with others.
It is easily assumable that these changes in relationship with
others relates to changes in own activities. Thus, rstly
abstracting those respondents answering participate more
actively, we can nd that they replied something changes in
relationship with others with 63.1% of the subtotal. These active
participants not only meet their friends and relatives more often
but also expand their networks with 16.5%. In terms of SC, a new
LRT line contributes to stimulate residents into bonding and
bridging activities. When a chi-squared independence test is

applied to two categories between participate more actively or

not and something changes or nothing changes expressed in a
contingency table, this proves that they are not independent of
each other at a signicance level of one percent.
Secondly, focusing on those respondents answering drive
less, we can also nd that half of them replied something
changes in relationship with others. One third of them meet
their friends and acquaintances more often, and 12.8% expanded
their networks. Also, a chi-square test shows that driving is not
independent of changes in relationship with others at a signicance level of one percent. This means that TLR has made residents
drive less, eventually developing their bonding and bridging activities in their societies.
5.4. Quantitative effects
TLR is a high-quality public transportation system and has a
wide range of positive effects on residents along the line. Our survey research also asks the residents how much discount rate of
fares they require if they accept an alternative ordinary bus
replacing TLR. From their willingness to accept (WTA), average
premium rate of TLR compared to an ordinary bus is calculated as
19.9 percent in all (see Table 7). In commuters' case the rate is
higher than for non-commuters, but within the latter, which
mainly consists of retired people or house wives, there is a

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(2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2016.02.001

K. Utsunomiya / Research in Transportation Economics xxx (2016) 1e7

Table 6
Changes in relationship with others by frequency of use, etc.
By frequency of use

Own activities

Once a week or more Once a month or more, but less

than once a week

Several times a year Rarely Participate more actively Drive less

(In which) retired or jobless

Composition ratio %
Something changes
No change
Others
Ratio to the total respondents %
a Meet friends and acquaintances more often
b Meet relatives more often
c Meet neighborhoods more often
d Expand new networks
e Nothing changes
f Others
Number of sample

55.1
44.9
0.0

43.3 47.8
54.3 50.7
2.4 1.4

17.6
79.7
2.6

0.0
88.7
11.3

63.1
35.9
1.0

50.0
48.2
1.8

39.6
7.7
8.8
12.1
44.0
1.1
91

29.1 31.1
7.5 9.5
3.0 4.1
7.5 5.4
51.5 47.3
3.7 2.7
134 74

10.2
2.5
2.5
5.1
77.7
3.2
157

0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
80.9
13.2
68

47.6
8.7
9.7
16.5
35.9
1.9
106

33.3
10.3
4.3
12.8
47.0
4.3
119

difference of their premium rates by 5.0 percent points between

those above who participate more actively and others. This indicates that a kind of SC-related value for non-commuters consists
of a quarter of their premium value of TLR.
Of course, it is a rough estimation, but we are sure that the
relationship between public transportation and SC has positive
effects on residents and enhances the value of public transportation
itself. In other words, without any consideration of SC, we might be
undervaluing the role of high-quality public transportation.

6. Discussion and conclusions

This paper quantitatively studies the relationship between SC
and local public transportation in Japan using both of macro and
micro data. From macro analysis of the relationship between the
indexes of social capital and local bus services using prefectural
cross section data, network and participation indexes standing for
SC in each prefecture positively correlates with the level of local bus
services. Private cars per capita also positively correlate with
participation indexes, but they have negative correlations with
trust index. From micro survey data in Toyama city, introduction of
a new LRT line is likely to have changed the activities of residents
along the line and encouraged them to participate in various events
and entertainment more actively. In particular, more and more
elderly people expand their network, which nurtures bridging SC.
This is consistent with the macro regression results that aging rate
positively relates to participation indexes. In the younger generation, there is a tendency to ride LRT instead of driving, which also
changed their relationship with others, to some degree. These
indicate that providing high-quality public transportation causes
changes in the travel habits of local residents, gives them more
opportunities to come into contact with others and expand their
networks.
In the past decade, many studies have shown that SC has a wide
range of positive effects on our society although there are still

Table 7
Average premium rate of TLR compared to bus.
Total

Total
Participate more actively
The rest

19.9
20.9
19.6

%
Commuters

Non-commuters

22.9
22.7
23.0

16.6
20.1
15.1

arguments about its concept and effects. In fact, not only academic
scholars but also politicians have begun to pay attention to the role
of SC implicitly or explicitly. In particular, it is an urgent challenge to
cope with social withdrawal of elderly people without mobility in
an aging society like Japan. Focusing on medical costs, according to
Kuno (2013), walking 1000 steps save total costs by 61yen (0.5 US
dollars) per person through health improvement. For example, if
100 thousand people go out to participate in social activities in their
communities using public transportation with some extra 1000
steps once a week, our society can gain 2.6 million dollars per year
mainly from the reduction of medical cost. More opportunities to
communicate with other people outside also prevent dementia of
elderly people. Fujita, Fujiwara, Chaves, Motohashi, and Shinkai
(2006) shows that going out once a day or more reduces risk of
outbreak of dementia by more than one third compared with once
a week or less.
If implementing high-quality local public transportation services fosters SC, it could bring about much larger benets to our
society than calculated social benets. Further studies should cope
with the causality between SC and local public transportation. For
the purpose of this much more data is needed. Regarding macro
data in Japan, new survey research project following questionnaires
by Cabinet Ofce and NRI will start hopefully near future. It is worth
analysing panel database with accumulated time series data.
On the other hand, micro data could provide us with new information among public transportation, SC, and medical cost. To
quantify wider economic and social benets of public transportation, impact on medical cost is a critical agenda. There is little
prior research on the relationship between local public transportation and medical cost, but studies on SC, which closely relates
to health conditions in communities, will clarify qualitative and
quantitative links between them. Health data that Toyama city in
Japan is now investigating might be used for future studies.
Although Japan has few regional public transport projects having such a great impact on residents as TLR, if we use the same
survey framework as in Toyama and collect data from residents
along newly introduced LRT or BRT lines around the world, this will
surely highlights some facts about local public transportation and
SC. Comparative analysis among regions and countries will also
give us other perspectives on the relationship between public
transportation and SC.
Further quantitative research is needed in various aspects, but it
is clear that we should notice the potential role of local public
transportation from the standpoint of SC beyond conventional social benets.

Please cite this article in press as: Utsunomiya, K., Social capital and local public transportation in Japan, Research in Transportation Economics
(2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2016.02.001

K. Utsunomiya / Research in Transportation Economics xxx (2016) 1e7

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Please cite this article in press as: Utsunomiya, K., Social capital and local public transportation in Japan, Research in Transportation Economics
(2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2016.02.001