Abstract

The estimation of passenger car ownership is a crucial estimation for auto-related production and for the analysis of many transportation-related policies such as Green House Gas (GHG), emissions, and energy consumption policies.

This paper is an attempt at methodological amelioration by conducting a fairly comprehensive literature survey on the estimation models of passenger car ownership. The estimated results will be strictly examined by t-value, and regression coefficients will be estimated at the 1% significance level. The accuracy of the estimated result will be compared to the statistical record.

Considering an aging society with a declining birth rate and an increasing governmental debt, the population may be polarized into high- and low-income groups. The polarization of income distribution affects the polarization of car ownership. We assume that the driver's license holders in the high-income group can own their vehicles. The BAU model estimates 61.59 million units of passenger vehicles in 2030 in Japan.

This paper is unique in that it attempts to estimate car ownership solely on the basis of socioeconomic trends, without including the physical characteristics of automobiles such as fuel economy, vehicle age, or infrastructure development.

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Ms. Hirota's article is also available at http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/srs/37/1/37_25/_article

To cite this article:
Keiko HIROTA, "Passenger Car Ownership Estimation toward 2030 in Japan", Chiikigaku Kenkyu (Studies in Regional Science), Vol. 37, No. 1, 2007, pp25-39 .