Tozai line
TOKYO'S SUBWAY
Tokyo, January 2002
Most people who
have never been to Japan might think that this island country is too overcrowded,
with too many people on the same spot. This is not totally true - if you go
to the countryside, you might find spots where no one lives or were only one
or two old couples farm some land. It can be very quiet without anyone, too
quiet some people might say.
If you come to the big cities (like Tokyoand Osaka) you might feel though that
the abovementioned stereotype of overcrowded Japan is true indeed. This is not
surprising : the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area, defined as Tokyo Metropolis
plus these three adjacent prefectures, now totals more than 30 million inhabitants;
it is the largest urban area in the world. Rail and subway lines are
extremely important in Tokyo commuting patterns - in the 23 wards of Tokyo alone,
about 27 million passengers use mass transit each day !! So on
the subway the stereotype becomes reality.
People packed into Tokyo's notoriously overcrowded trains have a hard time,
but may find the trip even more unbearable now in winter time - swaddled in
their winter clothing. At least that's my impression.
I dedicated this article to all the people suffering in the daily rush-hour
trains ...
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Tozai line |
On average crowding on trains routinely exceeds the 150 percent capacity recommended by the 'Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport' as the comfortable limit, at which all seats are taken and people's shoulders touch those of fellow passengers. |
East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) and other operators say they are already running nearly as many trains as they can, and do not foresee a dramatic increase in overall passenger numbers which would justify the construction of more track.
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The ministry
has conducted regular surveys of overcrowding on major commuter lines
since the 1950s. In a year 2000 survey, it found overcrowding
of up to 233
percent (in words : two-hundred-thirty-three percent !!!) between
Ueno and Okachimachi stations on the Keihin Tohoku Line. The year's next-worst
crowding was on Chuo Line rapid trains, where overcrowding reached 218
percent between Nakano and Shinjuku stations. Third-worst was a section
of the Sobu Line rapid transit service from Kinshicho to Ryogoku, at 215
percent. All three lines are operated by JR East. The overcrowding on
those same sections of line has decreased slightly from 10 years ago,
when it was at 277 percent, 255 percent and 247 percent, respectively,
according to the ministry's 1990 survey.
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 Kasai station in the morning |
Customers of Tokyo
subway (Eidan-Chikatetsu) in Tokyo also won't feel lonely on their trains :
At the Monzen-Nakacho subway station, for example, seven people complained of
breathing difficulties as a result of extreme crowding one morning during rush-hour
this winter [according to Asahi Newspaper]. I can feel
with them ! The section of the Tozai Line between that station and Kayabacho
station was the worst for subways in the year 2000, according to the ministry
survey, which put the overcrowding at 197 percent of capacity, a number
which is increasing in recent years. Cars on the Tozai Line trains that stop
near stairways at stations shared by other lines are about 20 percent more crowded
than other cars according to Eidan-Chikatetsu.
[Note : I live have to use Tozai Line every day, and Monzen-Nakacho
and Kayabacho are both on my way to university.]
One way train operators are
trying to deal with the problem is to increase the number of services. But I
think there is not much they can do, since the trains already come in 40-60
second intervals. Although it has been suggested putting more cars on trains,
many station platforms are too short to accommodate longer trains. And platforms
cannot be extended at many stations because of limited space in urban areas.
(The trains are very long already ... maybe twice or three times longer than
the trains in Vienna ! It is really surprising how trains being that long and
coming in less than 1 minute intervalls can be soo crowded.)
 Inside the Tozai line morning train |
Some railway companies have tried using bigger train cars to carry more commuters, as JR East did on its Chuo and Sobu lines. The new cars, which are 15 centimeters wider, allow each train to carry 1,480 passengers, (= 80 more than before). Wider trains are not an option, however, on lines that have narrow tunnels. |
Overcrowding or not, railway operators still had hoped for a greater increase in passenger numbers than is currently the case. Seibu Railway Co. postponed improvements on its Shinjuku Line because it is "not overcrowded enough" for the railway. "With little hope of more passengers, we are less motivated to invest in infrastructure that would alleviate overcrowding'' a company official said. [cited from Asahi Newspaper]
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My
recommendation : Take a look at my |
Some links :
people pushing
themselves and getting pushed onto the train