Chapter

Cities and
transportation
Kenji Doi
Professor, Department of Global Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University

1.1

The dynamics of urbanization and the role of transportation

Cities change with the passage of time, moving from growth to decline. To make an analogy with human
life, cities pass from periods of childhood to adolescence (urbanization), young adulthood to middle age
(suburbanization), and into old age (disurbanization). However, cities also expect a fourth phase not
comparable to human life, one of reurbanization.1) The form of urban transportation changes with the
growth phase of the city, and the role of urban transportation changes as well according to the life cycle
of the city as shown in Figure 1.
The role of transportation demanded in the urbanization phase is the carrying of large numbers of
people into the city, for example by railways. During suburbanization, the emphasis is on moving people
quickly over long distances. In the latter half of the suburbanization phase, the increasing development
of low-density suburbs shifts the predominant modes of transportation toward private automobiles.
Later in the disurbanization phase, increased spread of low-density urban areas (urban sprawl) causes a
decline in public transportation created on the premise of mass transport, further increasing the dependence on automobiles. Many Japanese cities are still experiencing the effects of disurbanization (urban
decline), but some cities are trying to proceed to the reurbanization stage. The role of transportation in
this fourth stage is, in contrast to that during the suburbanization stage, connecting areas of agglomeration within the city at short distances and moderate speeds, and promoting interconnectedness between
these areas of agglomeration.
The heavily automobile-dependent United States has been often called a suburban nation.2) ,3)
However, the spread of road infrastructure and automobile use during the 20th century made it the
suburban era for many countries worldwide. Those looking to escape from problems caused by
increased urban density due to increasing populations looked to suburbs as a kind of utopia that would
provide a wealthier countryside lifestyle, resulting in the mass production of largely uniform residential
and commercial suburban development all over the world. Artificially planned suburbs with decentralized and individualistic lifestyles were supported by freedom of movement for private car owners, and
later changed form into widespread sprawl development. This exacerbates the problem of automobile

Chapter 1: Cities and transportation13

Urbanization

Population growth and

congestion due to overcrowding
Provision of railways, etc.

Suburbanization

Population growth and

urban expansion
Motorization
Long distances, high speeds

Disurbanization

Continuation of expansion and

decline
Motorization
Decline of public transportation

Reurbanization

Re-agglomeration of urban hubs

Connected accessible
transportation
Short distances, low speeds

Figure 1. The urbanization process and the changing role of transportation

dependence, creating a negative synergistic effect between motorization and suburban sprawl.4)
The root of such urban and transportation problems is, in short, that our thinking regarding the
role of transportation has halted at the suburbanization phase, considering that the goal of transportation must be long distances, high speeds. We must evolve our thinking to the reurbanization phase,
where the goal is rather short distances, low speeds.

1.2

Mobility and accessibility

Mobility is generally defined as the ability to

move, and according to Ota 5) represents the

Individuals

degree of freedom of general individual movement with no regard to specific destination. In

transportation studies. Specifically, the word can

also be defined to mean the ease of reaching destinations and opportunities such as workplaces,
shopping, and medical services, or the ease with
which one can make use of them. In recent years,
accessibility and usability have come to be a

ing
ell
Dw

y
vit

desired destinations. The word accessibility is

also widely used in fields such as geography and

(resources)

ti
Ac

contrast, accessibility refers to the ability to perform demanding activities through movement to

Ab
il
re ity t
so o u
(m urc til
ob
e iz
ilit s e
y)

Place

Opportunity

Travel

(service)

(residence)
Ease
(acce

Freedom
of choices

of rea

ch

ssibilit

y)

Figure 2. The relation between mobility

and accessibility6)

14Theory

central concept in ideas in universal design.7)

Figure 2 shows the relationship between mobility and accessibility in a schematic form for a single
individual. Here, mobility is considered as the ability of an individual to make use of resources (time,
money, external support and assistance, as well as environmental factors, etc.) through movement, and
accessibility as ease of reaching essential opportunities and services. The perspective of mobility captures the degree of human-centered freedom of choices, while that of accessibility captures the degree of
place-based freedom as relating to the places that attract people. Our overall freedom of choices is determined by both mobility and accessibility.

1.3

Urban travel speed and safety

At the national level, emphasis should be placed on fast mobility to connect cities and hubs at high speed
by the latest technologies, including a maglev Shinkansen and a logistics Shinkansen for the countrys
high-speed rail network. On the other hand, slow mobility for enjoying excursions and interactions at a
safe and comfortable speed should be emphasized for personal and social reasons at the local level. Rigid
differentiation of travel speed according to location is required for achieving sustainable transportation
as well as increasing the attractiveness of cities.
In Japan, which is experiencing the problems of population decline and super-aging of society,
large-scale shrinking of cities is required from the perspective of national land and urban management.
However, such severe constraints can also serve to foster creativity that can break through the impasse
and lead to co-evolution of transportation, urban, and social developments. The development of shrinking cities to achieve sustainability and the development of creative cities to increase competitiveness
are strategies that are two sides of the same coin, and the realization of both will require a reconfiguration of the bonds between the elements of people, knowledge, goods, services, money, and time. Mobility is the key to doing so. As mentioned in Section 1.2, mobility refers both to freedom of movement and
ability to make use of resources.
Building a mobility system for cities that are both sustainable and highly competitive will require a
multifaceted understanding of the value of mobility, along with the formation of a hierarchical network,
consisting of a fast mobility layer that connects cities and hubs at high speed and a slow mobility layer
within cities and hubs that promotes excursions and interactions at low to medium speeds. Slow mobility refers to means and forms of transportation at near-human speeds. But why is such distinction
between speeds necessary?
A negative aspect of motorization is its standardization of travel speed. Whether in towns, suburbs,
or between cities, most automobile drivers pursue speed. The desire for long distances, high speeds
mentioned in Section 1.1 is ever-present, whether one is inside or outside of urban areas.
The pursuit of speed regardless of places results in uniform expansion that impairs the hierarchy of
urban spaces. The result is longer daily trips to work and school, increased energy consumption for
transportation, increased production of CO2 and local environmental load, and even threats to life due

Chapter 1: Cities and transportation15

Economy (efficiency)
Metropolitan
area
expansion

Hierarchical
structure
of networks

Total length of
road and rail
networks

Distribution of population and employment

Income
growth

Distribution of travel speed

Hierarchical
structure of
urban spaces

Concentration and
dispersion of
urban functions

Metropolitan
area
population

User benefit
Operator profits

Social (safety)

Speed between hubs

Value of
mobility

TDM, ITS
Smart choices

CO2 emissions
Environmental load

Speed within hubs

Ownership and
usage of
automobiles

Traffic fatalities
and injuries

Energy and the environment

Management of space,
speed, and demand

Figure 3. A causal relationship regarding the value of mobility and travel speed as the key factor

to increased risk of injury or death in a traffic accident (Fig. 3).

Figure 4 shows the relationship between urban population density, automobile travel speeds, and
rates of road traffic deaths between 2008 and 2010 for 65 regional core cities with a population over
300,000 inhabitants in Japan. Bubble size in the figure represents the population of the city. From Fig. 4
(a), one can clearly see that the rate of traffic fatalities increases with lowered urban density. Considering
that this relationship may vary between cities due to differences in the development level and usage rates
of urban public transportation, we focused on only automobiles and analyzed the relationship between
population distribution and average automobile running speed for intra-city travel, as well as the relationship between average travel speed and traffic death rate. As the results in Figs. 4 (b) and (c) show, we
found causal relationships in which the more two-dimensionally dispersed a city was, the higher its
average automobile travel speed, and the higher the average travel speed, the higher the traffic death

6.0
5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0

10

15

DID population density (1000 people/ha)

(a) Population density and road traffic death rate

50

7.0

45

6.0

Traffic fatalities per

100,000 population

Average travel speed (km/h)

Traffic fatalities per

100,000 population

7.0

40
35
30
25
20

0.4

0.6

0.8

1 .0

1.2

DID population ratio

(DID population / city population)

(b) Population distribution and average automobile

travel speed

5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0

20

30

40

Average travel speed (km/h)

50

*DID: densely inhabited district

(c) Average travel speed and road traffic death rate

Figure 4. Urban population density and distribution versus average automobile travel speeds and rates of road
trafc deaths

16Theory

rate. 8) These results consider only the

relationship between density, speed, and

society, the economy, and the environment, while keeping in mind the causal
relationships indicated by Figure 4.
One result of increasingly slower
movement speeds in urban areas and

Bus

50

Required time (minutes)

safety, so in the future there is a need to

analyze the effects of travel speed on

Walking

60

Bicycle
Automobile
Train

40
30
20
10

pursuit of the merits of slow mobility is

the cycling revolution currently spreading in Europe. As shown in Figure 5, for

trips up to around 5 km bicycles have a

10

Distance traveled (km)

Figure 5. Comparison of travel times by transportation mode for

intra-city travel

quicker travel speed than do automobiles and trains, and as is well known in Japan bicycles serve as an excellent, efficient and fast transportation mode within cities. The cycling revolution in London is famous for results such as its cycle superhighways and cycle hire (bike-sharing) scheme, but the social background and events leading up to this
realization is rich in lessons. A series of socioeconomic factors such as soaring fuel prices starting
around 2002, the introduction of in-town road pricing in 2003, and subway and bus terrorist attacks in
2005 are some of the influences that led people to use bicycles for their travel needs.

1.4

Aging and travel needs

As humans age they experience changes in physiological functions, reduced physical ability, reduced

In particular, the elderly place

less weight on the time and cost
aspects of travel, and more weight on

Ability

cognitive characteristics, and other changes in psychology and awareness that cause a decline in movement ability (Fig. 6). Figure 7 shows some of these mental changes that accompany increased age and
result in changes in travel needs.

Assumed previous
level of ability

travel that is safe, secure, and beneficial to health and the environment.
When this is displayed as a ternary
plot showing the positioning of vari-

Assumed ability in a
(super-) aged society
Changes in physiological function due to aging
Reduced physical ability
Decline in cognitive characteristics
Changes in psychology and awareness

ous modes of transportation, the travel

needs in an aging society show a clear
shift up and to the right, representing
a shift toward demand for medium- to

20

40

60

80

Age

Figure 6. Changes in human ability accompanying age

per
che
a
nd
Fas
ter
a

0.2

25
3
4
35 year
4
s
4
y
45 ear
s
5
4y
55 ear
s
6
4y
ea
rs
65
+y
ea
rs
liv 65+
ing ye
alo ars
ne ,

0.0

Safety and security

Comfortable travel

Time and expense

Work and tasks

Health and the environment

3544` 4554
2534 years

0.5
0.25

nity

65+
5564

ma

0.4

Hu

0.6

bili
ty

tra
ve

0.8

Walking

0.5

Mo

0.25

1.0

th
eal
to h t
ial men
efic iron
ben env
vel he
Tra and t

Weighting for quality of movement

Chapter 1: Cities and transportation17

Safe and secure travel

Current sense of values

0.25
0.50
Automobile

Public

transportation
Safety and
transportation capacity

1015 years later

Figure 7. Changes in travel needs accompanying aging9), 10)

low-speed slow mobility that is located in the position between public transportation and private
transportation. This is the position associated with transportation modes such as next-generation LRT
systems, low-speed electric community buses, community cycles, and other forms of shared personal
mobility.
Building the mobility system for a sustainable city will require a bold outlook on making these
changes, and enhanced safety is the starting point of the change process. Doing so will require making
decisions on the priorities for and extensive management of speeds of road transportation. Efforts to
achieve the harmonious coexistence of humans and automobiles through reducing speeds can be seen
in European speed management programs such as the establishment of the Zone 30 measure, which
establishes establish a 30 km/h (20 mph) zone. In recent years there have been increased efforts toward
retaining comfortable space via improved road design that attempts to change driver behavior in ways
that reduce their running speed. There has also been a worldwide trend toward promoting walkable
cities, which allow residents to walk to places necessary for daily life. These are some examples in which
human-centered prioritization has been established as the guiding principle for road and urban space
design.

1.5

Integrated design of cities and transportation

The term integrated transportation came into common use in the latter half of the 1990s. It goes without saying that a unified perspective is needed when developing transportation policy. The most important point is that one performs not an additive unification, but an integrated approach that combines
diverse aspects into a whole. There are four levels in a desirable integrated transportation system:
1) Operational integration: integration of public transportation services, fare structures, and operation information
2) Strategy integration: integration of policy instruments for the infrastructure, management,

18Theory

information provision, and pricing between different transportation modes

3) Policy integration: integrated policies for transportation and land use; integrated policies between
transportation divisions and divisions for other areas such as the environment, health care,
social welfare, education, and disaster prevention
4) Organizational integration: integration of the various organizations and institutions that are
responsible for transportation
Of the above, integrated transportation and urban design largely correspond to item 3), policy integration. In compact cities aiming for sustainability, as well as in transportation systems developed considering the needs of an aging society, addressing each of these in isolation will result in diminished
effects. The expansion of cities seen in the twentieth century resulted from increased motorization and
road development extended to far-reaching suburbs, in addition to population growth pressures. At a
minimum, therefore, it is imperative to perform policy design of integrated transportation and urban
development.11), 12)
Figure 8 shows some of these integrated design concepts and procedures. The figure illustrates the
relation of the four domains of city, infrastructure, mobility, and society; mobility is centrally located
and is positioned as a system in which public transportation and personal mobility measures complement each other. Road diets refers to a method for creating space for pedestrians, bicycles and other
medium- to low-speed personal transportation modes by reducing the number and/or width of roadway
Economy
Improvement of overall efficiency
through allocating the right
transportation modes in the right places

Infrastructure
Mobility

Public
transportation Dynamic
linkage

TOD Corridor

District
continuation
program

Personal
mobility
measures

Road diet/renovation

Conversion to a compact
city through shrinking and
re-agglomeration of
urban functions and
spaces

Compact and connected city

Environment

City

Safety
Priority and speed
management in road
transportation

New infrastructure
ICT Smart
Community

Community and new public

Community
infrastructure

Society

Design process
Equity

Transition to a social system

standardized on the elderly
with limited mobility

Figure 8. Integrated design of cities and transportation

Chapter 1: Cities and transportation19

lanes. This allows existing roads renovated with an emphasis on the usability of road spaces by a broader
range of users, and has already been implemented in many countries. In addition, transit-oriented development and corridor development are methods of supporting public and shared transportation from a
land use aspect. Detailed discussions of these are presented in chapter 2.
As the design process loop in the figure shows, priority-based road space allocation and strict speed
management to secure traffic safety are the primary pursuit, and they result in the ability to render social
systems standardized on the elderly in which universal design can assist in providing increased accessibility. Also promoted is a conversion to compact cities in which urban functions and spaces are more
aggregated. When these conditions are met, regional public transportation becomes sustainable, and the
strategy of allocating the right transportation modes in the right places will lead to improved overall
efficiency. Implementing a mobility revolution will be impossible without holistic perspectives that
clearly prioritize management of speeds (slowness) and spaces (compactness), as well as time management that harnesses the opportunities and threats of external shocks and constraints, converting these
to revolutionary force. In Japan, there are continued trends for neglecting the global optimization in
transportation policy; public transportation policy is still being discussed in isolation, and slow mobility
modes such as bicycles are positioned merely as local solutions without intermodal integration.
In a future of increasingly harsh economic and financial conditions, it will be difficult to improve
the quality of mobility in a super-aged society without meeting prerequisites of priority, slowness, and
compactness (PSC). Quality of mobility refers to social usability for users with diverse needs. Moving
beyond the physical, physiological, and ease-of-use levels of todays usable mobility systems to a higher
level in which one psychologically wants to use the system will require a revolutionary process that
emphasizes PSC.
The view of linear growth that aims at an American- or European-style society has become less
effective.13) Nevertheless, we find it difficult to abandon such concepts of growth in our pursuit of a
future mobility society. This is why our thinking on the role of transportation comes to a halt as
described at the beginning of this chapter. The development of a mobility society best suited to ourselves
will require consideration of not only technologies and systems, but also culture and ethos.

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Chapter 1: Cities and transportation21

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