The Pattern of the Motor Vehicle Traffic of the Cities in Tohoku District

Recently, the motor vehicle traffic rapidly developed in medium and small cities as well as large cities. In this report, the author analysed the pattern of the motor vehicle traffic of medium and small cities in Tohoku district. Principal sources are results of the “origin and destination survey” which practiced at 12 cities in 1962.In urban area the motor vehicle traffic is classified into three patterns as follows : the first pattern named intra-urban traffic, which both origin and destination lie in urban. According as size of city become large, the proportion of this traffic to urban increase and clearly forms the traffic region in medium cities whose 200, 000-500, 000 populations, for example Sendai, Aomori, and Akita. This traffic concentrates in urban center, commercial, business, and railway station area. Traffic volumes become rapidly to dicline in proportion to the distance from urban center. The automobile traffic regions are small, but the truck traffic regions are larger and dispersive. The second pattern, urban-suburban traffic which origin or destination lies in urban and suburban. This traffic shows mainly a truck movement. The third pattern, through traffic which both origin and destination lie outside of urban. In small cities there are so many through traffic compared with all traffic, but through traffic volumes make little difference to it in medium cities.