Lab for Innovative Infrastructure Systems

[18 November 2018]

Mr. Tsuru, an alumnus of our lab, presented the his master’s thesis at the 2018 National Conference of the City Planning Institute of Japan (CPIJ) that held from 16^th to 18^th November. He adopted an analytical model for predicting the number of newly established retail store locations and withdrawals in a provincial city on a detailed spatial basis. We would like to thank all the participants for their comments at his presentation. The content of his research has also been published as the following paper.

T., Tsuru, & D., Fukuda. (2018). Determinants of establishment and closing decisions for small retail stores in a provincial city. Journal of the City Planning Institute of Japan, 53(3), 1529-1536. (English version   Japanese version)

The abstract of the paper is shown as follows.

The hollowing out of the central urban area in local cities is an urgent problem. In order to solve the problem, in local hub cities nationwide “Urban Facility Location Plan” is being planned and implemented. With this background, the objective of this study is to empirically and comprehensively reveal the factor that the retail store establish or close in local hub cities. For that, we construct a count data model that can predict the number of establishment and closing of retail stores in the detailed 1 km mesh level to analyze the impact of implementation of urban planning in detailed regional units. Based on the parameter estimation results, the size of the commercial area has a positive influence on the number of establishments, whereas it has a negative effect on the number of closings. The distance to the large shopping mall has negative effects on both the number of establishments and closings. We also find that in the central urban area the spatial effect parameter of the closing model tends to be positive suggesting that closing in neighboring areas may prompt closing in the current mesh. Finally, with the implementation of Urban Facility Location Plan in mind, we estimated the influence of induction of large commercial facilities to the central urban area on the number of locations and closings at retail stores.

[2018/10/25 ~10/26]

The Regional Symposium for Infrastructure Development (RSID8) was held at the University of the Philippines Diliman, and (M2 students) Ms. Kaneko and Ms. Arum from our laboratory presented their research.

This symposium is jointly held by the University of the Philippines, Kasetsart University (Thailand), and our university, and is an opportunity for civil engineering students to exchange research.

Ms. Arum presented “Modeling the Relationship between Transit-Oriented Development and Land Value”, while Ms. Kaneko presented “Impact of Various Tolling Schemes on Traffic on Networks: A Preliminary Investigation with Recursive Logit Route Choice Model”.
The presentations provided an opportunity for a meaningful exchange of opinions on sustainable transportation.

We were also able to experience “Toki,” a public transportation system that runs on campus, and “Grab,” a car hailing system, which helped us deepen our understanding of transportation in Southeast Asia!

[4-6 August 2018]

Prof. Fukuda, Mr. Nakanishi (Research Assistant), and Mr. Azarel (M2), Mr. Hirabayashi (MS), and Ms. Kaneko (MS) presented their papers at the international conference, International Symposium of Transport Simulation & International Workshop on Traffic Data Collection and its Standardization (ISTS & IWTDCS), which was held at Ehime University.

The topics of each presenter are shown as below:

Mr. Azarel: “Spatial distribution of Blablacar’s intercity peer-to-peer ride-sharing trips: Case study of Spain”

Mr. Nakanishi: “Feature Extraction of Inter-region Travel Pattern Using Random Matrix Theory and Mobile Phone Location Data”

Mr. Hirabayashi: “Cross comparison of spatial partitioning methods for urban transportation network”

Ms. Kaneko: “Route Choice Analysis in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area Using a Link-Based Recursive Logit Model with Link Awareness”

Moreover, Prof. Fukuda gave a lecture on the introduction of ETC2.0 based on probe data.

[18 July 2018]

Ms. Iokura (M1) presented her graduation research at IATBR2018@UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), which is a study on the extraction of tourists’ behavior pattern by Wi-Fi based continuous monitoring. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude towards anyone who provided comments.

The conference venue, UCSB, is located along the Pacific Ocean in a moderate climate. Thank you to Prof. Kostas Goulias and his staff at UCSB.

[25-29 June 2018]

Mr. Dantsuji (D2) attended the conference of the International Transport Economics Association (ITEA) held in Hong Kong and made a presentation, “Department time and Transportation Mode Choice in Cities with Road Bottleneck and Crowding in Transit”.

This is a study that analyzes fare policies by constructing a departure time and transportation mode choice model that takes into account bottleneck congestion at the network level and on-board train congestion. The model includes new modeling techniques such as adopting MFD to represent bottlenecks, and reducing capacity as congestion increases.

In addition, Prof. Fukuda gave a presentation on the contents of Mr. Shiroma’s graduation thesis under the title, “Tolling and Traffic Demand: Evidence from the 2016 Toll Scheme Reform on Urban Expressway Network in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area”. It is a causal effect analysis that considering the price change as a natural experiment situation.

[2018/06月09 ~ 06/10]

The 57th JSCE Spring Conference on Infrastructure Planning and Management has ended successfully. Thanks to all the presenters, audience, professors who managed the conference, and students who were in charge of the practical management, I feel that we were able to make this conference a good one. As a student of Tokyo Institute of Technology, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you.

As for the presentations, four students from our laboratory participated in the oral presentation division: (M1 students) Ms. Iokura and Mr. Muro, and (M1 student) Ms. Hirabayashi and (D3 student) Mr. Dantuji, in the poster session division. Details will be added later.

[30 March 2018]

On March 30, a seminar on intercity transportation, “One-Day Seminar on Inter-Regional Passenger Transportation – Basic Characteristics and Data of Intercity Passenger Transportation,” was held. Mr. Suzuki (M1) presented his research results on “Data-Fusion Approach for Trip-Purpose Estimation of Inter-Regional Passengers”. We received many valuable comments from Prof. Ishikura (Tokyo Metropolitan Univ.), Prof. Okubo (Ehime Univ.), and Prof. Hibino (National Graduate School of Policy Studies) on how to evaluate the fitness of the model, the way to improve it, and the way to apply it to policy making. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude towards anyone who provided these comments.

[9-12 December 2017]

Mr. Suzuki (M1) and Mr. Imaoka (M1), participated in the 22nd International Conference of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies (HKSTS) held recently. Their detail research titles are as follows:

Arata SUZUKI, Hiromichi YAMAGUCHI and Daisuke FUKUDA: “Data-Fusion Approach for Trip-Purpose Estimation of Inter-Regional Passengers”, Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies (HKSTS), pp. 327-338, 2017.

Masahiro IMAOKA and Daisuke FUKUDA: “Transit Assignment Model for Tokyo Metropolitan Area Considering Route Overlapping and In-Vehicle Congestions” Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies (HKSTS), pp. 347-353, 2017.

Prof. Fukuda presented the following research results, “Survey of Hokkaido Extensive Sightseeing Tourists’ Behavior Using Wi-Fi Packet Sensing”, at the 16th Annual Conference of the Japan Society of Tourism Informatics (JSITS). We were happy to receive many comments and questions.

福田大輔・小林巴奈・五百藏夏穂（東京工業大学），田中謙大（琉球大学），中西 航（東京工業大学），浅田拓海・有村幹治（室蘭工業大学），内田賢悦（北海道大学），菅 芳樹（地域未来研究所）

[3-5 November 2017]

Prof. Fukuda gave a poster presentation at the 56th Autumn Conference on Infrastructure Planning and Management held at Iwate University. It was an introduction to the master’s thesis of Mr. Mizuguchi, who graduated last year:

Masanori Mizuguchi, Daisuke Fukuda. (2017). Fundamental Study on Optimal Area Inflow Control Considering Uncertainty of MFD Shape. [MFD形状の不確実性を考慮した最適なエリア流入制御に関する基礎的検討．]