Aim at Promoting Use of Public Transportation ~Let’s Go Golfing by Train~

Summary

Trains are energy-efficient. It is said that to carry something with the equivalent weight, letting the amount of energy a train needs be 1, a private car needs 8. Since using trains are effective to prevent global warming, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the railway industry have been cooperating with each other and conducting a campaign “Let’s Be Eco-friendly by Using Railways.”

Tobu Railway, a major private railway company, approached 16 golf courses and started a campaign “Let’s Go Golfing by Train” to encourage golfers to use trains since 2010. The only qualification to participate in the campaign is to “go by train.” And to promote this action much further, they also started another campaign called “Eco Point Rally” to promote use of trains since 2012. It is a campaign that participants can get gifts according to the amount of points they have collected.

This case won the top prize in “Let’s Find the Eco Keeper in Tochigi Vol.5” It is a competition to decide the case which represents Tochigi Prefecture in the Low Carbon Trophy 2015 held by organizations such as General Incorporated Association Japan Network for Climate Change Actions.

Background

The number of golfers and golf courses continue to drop gradually from their peaks in the period of economic bubble at the beginning of the Heisei period. These days, golfers are growing old and it is becoming difficult for them to drive over a long distance. Young people now are not so much interested in cars and many of them don’t have cars. Golf courses want to meet the needs of “golfers who don’t drive” and railway companies welcome long-distant passengers without commuter passes. Therefore, Tobu Railway approached related people and this lead to establish “Along Tobu Line Golf Course Network.”

Operational Methods

Tobu Railway connects areas along its line and the center of Tokyo and it makes good use of infrastructures such as pickup shuttle buses golf courses in various areas have. Thus, Tobu Railway advertises this campaign broadly to areas around Tokyo and this effort is making the campaign successful. The advantages that it mainly emphasizes to the participants who want to play golf are as follows,

・Golf courses have pickup shuttle buses so that they are accessible even when you go by train.
・Golf courses have transport services tying up with local carriers so it is easy to deliver golf bags.
・If you don’t drive, you can drink alcohol.

In advancing this campaign, the railway company promotes the point that you can easily go golfing without driving your car. In addition, as another campaign to promote the campaign “Let’s Go Golfing by Train,” it is holding “Eco Point Rally.” There is no need to resister to participate in the campaign “Let’s Go Golfing by Train” itself. It issues stamp cards to the golfers and it stamps the cards as points whenever you go golfing by train. According to the amount of accumulated points, you can get gifts. There are several specified periods for this campaign a year and a cumulative total of 12,000 golfers have participated so far.

Points

The merit of using trains is that it is energy-efficient as was mentioned at the beginning. And the feature of a train is that it grows in efficiency when a greater number of people ride in a train since it runs no matter how many people are riding on it. There are also trekking routes, hot springs around Kinugawa and sight-seeing spots such as Nikko other than golf courses along Tobu Railway’s line. Therefore, they say that they want to hold campaigns also for travelers other than golfers in the future.

It is important to clear away the obstacles when you use trains and improve convenience reflecting the needs of passengers to promote use of environmentally friendly trains. We would like to expect to the actions of the related people in the future.