Exploration of the community desires in the provision of adaptive bus service in Japanese rural area

Abstract

At present, in the city of Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, there is a plan to provide a new scheme of bus service. Thus, this article has an aim to explore the community desires regarding the bus service in the city of Hidaka. This study employed questionnaire survey, which was distributed to commuter and non-commuter group of resident in three different residence areas. This survey collected community desires and perceptions regarding bus service, while this article reports only the findings from commuter. It is found that there is a potential for the provision of bus service in this area, whilst the main problem is the unsynchronized time table between bus and rail service, including the length of bus operation time. Moreover, the binary logistic model explains the potential demand of the new bus service. It can be concluded that this study provides potential notion for bus service improvement.