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Various modes of domestic transport are used in Japan; almost all passenger transport is by railway, while nearly all freight transport is by motor vehicle and cargo ship. The transport sector, which released 20 percent of the total CO2 emissions in fiscal 2010, is improving the energy efficiency of cars, promoting the broader use of environmentally-friendly cars, and in an attempt to further reduce emissions, the government is encouraging a shift from driving to public transportation and the development of next-generation low-emission vehicles, etc.
No major changes have been observed in recent years in the volume of domestic passenger transport. In public transportation, among other domains, a variety of actions have been taken to boost ridership, for example, by introducing multiple-use IC (integrated circuit) cards covering different railway/bus operators and bus location systems designed to provide bus location tracking information, as well as varying commute times to relieve road traffic jams on a city- or region-wide scale.
In fiscal 2010, the number of domestic transport passengers was 29.08 billion (down 0.8 percent from the previous fiscal year). The total volume of passenger transport was 548.02 billion passenger-kilometers (down 1.0 percent).
In fiscal 2010, the Japan Railways (JR) group reported 8.82 billion passengers (down 0.3 percent from the previous fiscal year) and 244.59 billion passenger-kilometers (up 0.1 percent). Railways other than JR reported 13.85 billion passengers (down 0.2 percent) and 148.87 billion passenger-kilometers (down 0.4 percent).
Commercial buses transported 4.46 billion passengers (down 0.4 percent from the previous fiscal year) and achieved 69.96 billion passenger-kilometers (down 1.8 percent); both figures decreased in fiscal 2010. In order to encourage the use of buses, various efforts to improve their convenience have been promoted.
Taxi and limousine hire services have marked a long-term downward trend in passengers. They carried 1.78 billion passengers and reported 7.84 billion passenger-kilometers in fiscal 2010.
Fiscal 2010 air transport records show that there were 82 million passengers (down 2.0 percent from the previous fiscal year), and passenger-kilometers amounted to 73.75 billion (down 1.9 percent).
In fiscal 2010, passenger ships reported 85 million passengers (down 7.7 percent from the previous fiscal year) and 3.00 billion passenger-kilometers (down 2.2 percent).
In the area of domestic freight, a total of 4.99 billion metric tons (up 5.9 percent from the previous fiscal year) of freight was transported for a total of 446.41 billion ton-kilometers (down 14.5 percent) in fiscal 2010.
As for transport tonnage volume in fiscal 2010, motor vehicle transport accounted for more than 90 percent of the total. In terms of transport ton-kilometers, major items transported by motor vehicles were: foodstuffs, textiles and household equipment; and wastes and feed. The principal items transported by cargo ships were nonferrous ores and metals, petroleum products, etc.
The global economic downturns after September 2008 and the spread of the new influenza in early 2009 have declined international air passenger transport with Japanese airlines. In 2011, they transported 12.16 million passengers (down 16.5 percent from the previous year) on international flights, and registered 53.04 billion passenger-kilometers (down 16.3 percent).
The number of Japanese overseas travelers in 2011 rose from the previous year to 16.99 million (up 2.1 percent). According to reports on arrivals by tourist offices in countries around the world, China, Republic of Korea and the U.S.A. had many Japanese visitors in 2011.
The number of foreign visitors to Japan was 6.22 million in 2011 (down 27.8 percent from the previous year). Broken down by country/region, the number of visitors from Asian countries was highest, totaling 4.72 million persons (down 27.6 percent from the previous year). Among Asian countries, the number of visitors from Republic of Korea was highest, amounting to 1.66 million, a figure that accounted for 26.7 percent of the total number of foreign visitors to Japan.
Of the total number of foreign visitors to Japan (provisional), tourists numbered 4.06 million persons, or 65.2 percent of total foreign visitors. The highest number of tourists came from Republic of Korea with 1.20 million travelers, followed by Taiwan with 0.87 million travelers.
The volume of seaborne foreign transport in 2010 was 819.1 million tons, down 0.6 percent over the previous year. Of this figure, total exports decreased by 0.5 percent to 44.8 million tons, and total imports increased by 1.7 percent to 465.9 million tons.
Air-shipped international freight in 2011 totaled 1.06 million tons in terms of volume (down 20.1 percent from the previous year) and 5.63 billion tons in terms of ton-kilometers (down 15.5 percent).
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