Application of a new travel demand prediction technique to a feasibility study of a fast car-ferry service

摘要

For naval architects, it is important to develop advanced ships based on a new concept. There are usually a lot of technical walls to be broken to realize new ships, and it is exciting for naval architects to develop new technologies to build them. Some newly developed ships, however, have not accepted in marine transportation, because they could not develop the market, or demands for them. This suggests that economical assessments and prediction of demand of newly developed tools are very improtant in the process of the technical development. However most of naval architects have not cared such economical studies. This may be partly because there are quite few tools for economical assessment and prediction of the demand of newly develped ships.