Due to the steady increase in the use of private autos in Japan, the bus business is facing hard times. In particular, bus services owned by public organizations have been struggling with increases in operating deficits and subsidies, so that recently in many cities there has been a call for...

A water supply system composed of water production facilities and transmission facilities obtains water from various sources such as surface water, groundwater and so on. Although there are many empirical studies such as measuring efficiency, productivity and/or returns to scale for water supply...

Although water supply systems include activities such as water intake; water purification; and water distribution, many water supply organizations are not always equipped with all three activities. In fact, Japan has two types of water companies: one that operates water intake and water...

The merging of some water utilities in Japan has become possible since the 2000 Outline of Administrative Reform and the 2001 Water Act Revision. There are two avenues to merge water utilities, horizontal consolidation and vertical integration. Horizontal consolidation enables water...

The efficient operation of sewerage services is impacted by various factors such as geographical and topographical conditions, diversity of vertical and horizontal organizational structure, ownership types, and level of public-private partnership. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport...