Japanese railway companies

In Japan, one of the main forms of transportation for people is the railways, especially when mass and high-speed travel is made from one city to another or for the transportation of passengers within the cities themselves. These railway lines can also be used to transport goods, although this practice is uncommon there.

Knowing this, it is not surprising that there are many private railway transport networks. This network is a very efficient alternative, requiring few subsidies and operating extremely punctually. Therefore, many people in Japan choose to use this means of transportation.

As the railway system is one of the most important means of transportation in Japan, many of the large Japanese companies provide railway services. In this article, we will show some of these companies and how they operate to meet this great demand for rail transport.

Emergence of railway companies

In Japan, there are many private railway systems. In post-war Japan, the government encouraged companies to develop their own mass transport systems in order to quickly rebuild the country’s urban transport networks.

Private railway lines were encouraged to compete with each other, with the government’s role limited to regulating fares. In exchange for the development of railway lines, private corporations had business opportunities to diversify their operations.

By allowing private companies to control transport-oriented ventures and railway lines, planned communities were facilitated, enabling private railway operators to establish a vertically integrated business of residential, commercial, industrial, and retail development and the methods of transportation used by people to travel between these areas.

Major railway companies

There are more than 100 private companies that provide Japanese transport services. Among them are six regional companies from the Japan Railways Group (JR), which provide passenger services to most parts of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. There are also another 16 large regional companies that provide railway services as part of their corporate operations.

There is also the national freight company JR (a group of companies formed after the privatization of JNR). This group began to control a large part of the railway lines starting in 1996, totaling 20,135 km, leaving only 7,133 km for the other companies in the region.

The JR group and several of these companies are among the major corporations in the country. This is because many of these railways were built by companies that develop integrated communities along the railway lines, making this a very profitable business.

The use of railways in Japan

In the country, about 7.289 billion people were transported just in the year 2013. By comparison, Germany transports only about 2.2 billion passengers per year. Because of this large railway system, Japan has 46 of the 50 busiest stations in the world.

The main use of these lines is urban or intercity, because sponsorship on many non-urban lines is declining due to the increase in car ownership and the decrease in rural populations. For example, on October 16, 2015, JR West announced it was considering closing the 108 km Sanko Line due to poor sponsorship, and on September 29, 2016, JR West announced that the entire line would close in March 2018.

Cities like Kobe, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto, Sapporo, Sendai, Fukuoka, Yokohama, and Tokyo have subway systems. However, unlike Europe, for example, the vast majority of passenger traffic is on suburban trains that cross metropolitan areas. In addition to the subway system, many cities also have tram and monorail networks.

Curiosities about Japanese railway lines

Japanese railways are among the most punctual in the world. The average delay on the Tokaido Shinkansen in the fiscal year 2012 was only 0.6 minutes. When trains are delayed by just five minutes, the conductor makes an announcement apologizing for the delay, and the railway company may provide a “delay certificate.” This happens because passengers rely heavily on rail traffic and take it for granted that trains operate on time. When trains are delayed by an hour or more, it can even make the news.

Another thing that is also among the best in the world in Japan is railway safety and cleanliness. Although some people say that safety in Japan is declining, it is unlikely that a crime will be found there, even when passengers sleep in a subway car, something that is quite common. Furthermore, although there are many countries where graffiti can be seen on train cars and trains degraded by equipment damage, this is quite rare in Japan, rail vehicles are generally respected as public goods, being kept clean and in good condition.