Opinion: Custom and culture, the pillars of Japan’s rail efficiency

The news that Tokyo Metro, the state-owned company that runs part of the city’s underground network, is to help run the Elizabeth line has led to wry smiles among some commentators.

They have been quick to trot out the old stories of people being squeezed into trains like sardines, by white-gloved attendants shouting incomprehensible instructions.

They could not be more wrong. Tokyo has adapted to the growth in numbers by providing an astonishing service, and the days of pushing people forcibly onto trains are long gone.

I am currently in Tokyo, and have spent much of the past week hopping on and off the Yamanote Line and other parts of this huge network.

There are undoubtedly things we can learn from its operation. But there are other aspects that are so ingrained in the prevailing culture that it would take a revolution and a 1984-type dictator to change them.

The sheer scale of the system is almost unimaginable. There are around 40 million journeys daily on the wider rail network in and around Tokyo - around ten times the daily number of London Underground users. The top ten busiest stations in the world are in Japan.

Fortunately, while there is a morning peak, these journeys are mostly spread throughout the day - it is a constant rush hour, but without the rush.

No one runs for a train. Everyone moves quietly and steadily. They queue on either side of the doors waiting for passengers to get off. They speed through the barriers, which only shut when the ticket is not valid, and are far faster and more reliable than those in the UK. Cannily, the barriers are quite long, and therefore not even Usain Bolt could outpace the sensors that close the little gates if you don’t put in the right sort of ticket.

Many stations in central Tokyo now have platform doors (far cheaper versions than those on the Jubilee Line) and waist-high barriers that open simultaneously with the carriage doors. And the drivers are adept at stopping at precisely the right place to ensure that the train aligns on the correct part of the platform.

More are being installed, but it is a basic technology that balances cost and effect in a way that we are so poor at - as HS2’s mad bat tunnel demonstrated (RAIL 1023).

It is all wonderfully smooth. As I travelled to Tokyo for the first time in my life a couple of weeks ago, I knew that I would be discovering a very alternative way of running railways. But I had no idea it would be such a contrast.

After all, trains are trains, wherever they are, running on tracks and invariably powered by electricity in urban areas.

But operation of the trains in a very complex environment, involving both private and public sectors with technology that is chosen for its reliability rather than modernity, is beyond impressive.

Railways are best seen as a boring process that needs to be repeated every day, with as few changes and surprises as possible. And once the winning formula has been found… leave well alone.

Here’s a small example to show how things are different. There is a line which starts in the western suburbs of this vast megalopolis. When it reaches Shinjuku on the edge of the central area, the driver changes.

That’s because the train is no longer on tracks controlled by the private railway that operates it, but by the Tokyo Metro.

And it crosses the central area as (effectively) an underground line.

Then, as if to emphasise that anything is possible in this culture where things are done by custom and practice rather than through lawyers, at the eastern edge of the central district, the situation is reversed and a third driver (operating for yet another company) takes over.

This is just one illustration of the complexity of the rail system in and around Japan’s capital. In addition to Japan Railways East (which runs many of the underground lines) and the two metro companies (one private, one state-owned), there are a further seven railways providing services for the capital’s residents.

And they are heavily used. JR East and the two metro companies alone have around 24 million passenger journeys every day, having almost recovered to pre-COVID levels - working from home is a far rarer phenomenon in a country where there is a strong office culture and the population tends to live in cramped accommodation.

Aside from imagining how (for example) Thameslink could operate in that way, with three different companies co-operating to ensure smooth running, there are other major cultural differences.

The revenue from these services is divided between the various operators (electronically, of course) in a system that was first devised in the 1920s - akin to the Railway Clearing House established by the Railway King, George Hudson, in the 1840s.

However, it is of course a much more complex world than 100 years ago, and the rail network in Tokyo has expanded almost exponentially with new suburban and underground lines, plus further complexities such as airport links.

So, I asked a key director of one of the private companies contributing to this system whether the system had necessitated lengthy negotiations, dozens of lawyers, and enough documents to destroy a forest or two - as happened when decisions over the paths on the East Coast Main Line were being allocated.

Not a hint of that. No lawyers were involved in setting up arrangements which were set up along traditional lines - but just expanded.

Moreover (and I particularly liked this), I also asked if there were compensation arrangements when one operator’s train got in the way of another and caused delays.

I explained how we have hundreds of people to deal with the attribution of delay minutes. Surely there was something similar?

Of course not.

There are downsides. When I went for a jog around the Imperial Palace moat and got lost (don’t ask how one gets lost running around a royal estate, but I did), I found myself at an unfamiliar underground station - actually part of the subway, which means the deep tube lines.

When I tried to use the ticket that I had bought daily for £3.80 to use the sub-surface lines, the barrier refused to open because it is run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation - which is owned by the Japanese Government and separate from both the Tokyo Metro and Japan Rail East (JR East), which runs several underground lines.

I had to then purchase a separate ticket for £1 to enable me to connect back with the JR system.

Remarkably, there are very few personnel at the gates. The system relies on trust, and that is partly imposed by the people around you. No one ‘jaywalks’ when the lights are red against the pedestrians, even when there are no cars in sight. And foreigners like me follow the discipline, because it would be rude not to.

Therefore, it is difficult to imagine transposing much of this into London. Our society is far less cohesive, much less disciplined, and indeed noisier - few people chat loudly on the Tokyo tube. That air of respect becomes a norm that visitors soon recognise.

The extraordinary numbers are reflected in the Shinkansen, the high-speed trains that sprout out in all directions from Tokyo. In particular, nearly half a million daily use the line to Osaka 300 miles away, and then Hiroshima and beyond.

That, too, is an extraordinary story from which we have much to learn. I will write about it in the next issue.