Tokyo: The Japanese government plans to establish a new council involving the transport ministry and other government bodies to revitalize regional transportation.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida instructed transport minister Tetsuo Saito to establish the new council at a meeting of the government’s Council for the Realization of the Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation on June 2.

The government is working to launch the regional transportation council this summer at the earliest.

The revitalization of regional transportation is on the agenda of this weekend’s Group of Seven transport ministers meeting in the western Japan city of Shima, Mie Prefecture.

In Japan, a related law was enacted in April to introduce a new system to help rebuild regional transportation, including trains, buses and taxis, and make it sustainable.

The digital garden city council then positioned the revitalization of transportation as a key challenge for the time being, and called for drawing up specific measures for cooperation in various fields and accelerating the nationwide sharing of model cases.

Possible measures include effectively integrating route bus and school bus operators to reduce workload and improve profitability, using taxis for transportation to and from day care facilities, and selling local farm products and offering health counseling services at bus terminals.

The government aims to allocate funds for these measures in its budget for fiscal 2025.

The government will also consider measures to strengthen rail networks, believing that it is necessary to create wide living areas that include large cities, amid concerns that solving social problems alone could become difficult in areas facing significant population falls.

JIJI Press