The thread kicks off from an article reporting that the Nippori-Toneri Liner’s congestion rate hit 177%, the worst in the country for the fifth year running. The original article laid out three barriers explaining why “just add more trains” doesn’t work, but posters on the thread kept circling back to a structural problem rather than the technical constraints (the limits of keeping cars light on rubber tires, and the difficulty of adding service given its driverless automated operation): there’s almost no demand in the reverse direction during the morning rush, so running more trains wouldn’t pay off anyway. The thread also lit up over the contrast between Europe, where pouring tax money into public transit is taken for granted, and Japan, where that’s avoided, plus regional banter about riders commuting in from Chiba and Saitama.
Congestion Rate 177% — Worst in Japan for the 5th Year Running! The Three Barriers Standing in the Way of “Just Add More Trains”
Sun, Sep 27, 7:42 AM JST
Norimono News
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
Poor guy, never made it past high school.
Re: #5
It already runs right up to the edge of Saitama.
If you want it extended, go petition Saitama.
The old Chuo Line packed you in so tight front, back, and sides that you could seriously float in midair lol
Go ahead and try that.
It's not possible.
Isn't that more the Saitama bumpkins' turf, if anything?
No need for some hick who can't even read a map to punch above his weight and jump into the conversation
Classic case of 'buy cheap, pay twice.'
As long as they can't raise fares, that's the only option they've got
That's just Tokyo for you ("Tonkin" — a mocking nickname for Tokyo)
Not doing anything is the right call.
Don't like it? Don't ride.
The thing is, the Nippori-Toneri Liner isn't even profitable despite that — that's one of its biggest problems.
There's no demand in the reverse direction.
The Utsunomiya LRT (branded "the Light Line") is the flip side — it nailed reverse-direction demand and became a huge success.
Basically true, but leaving passengers stranded on the platform is a real problem too
The Toneri Liner has no driver.
These days, switching it over to buses would actually be the harder option
There was originally nothing but buses out there anyway
So just move Ueno Zoo out to Toneri, problem solved
There are already people riding it out to see the nemophila flowers at Toneri Park
Funny how overseas, these kinds of urban lines run half-empty with a flat fare of like 50-100 yen no matter how far you go lol
That's because it's public transit.
In Europe, it's widely seen as a citizen service.
So spending tax money on that kind of service is just taken for granted.
In developed countries, subsidizing public transit with tax money is the norm.
Japan's just different.
There are lines that do that.
Some fold the seats away during rush hour
Apparently if you pack it full and it gets too heavy, it can't run
Since it runs on rubber tires, apparently if you pull the seats and cram it full, the tires would literally blow out.
There's also a limit to how light they can make the cars.
Tokyo's rail network only works on the assumption that rush hour trains run packed.
The moment ridership thinned out, they cut the number of trains.
Everything else is just an excuse.
Exactly, aiming for under 100% ridership is nothing but a fantasy.
Though I guess that's because they set commuter pass fares assuming 200% occupancy in the first place.
And here they were complaining that if it weren't for rush hour, they wouldn't need all this equipment investment
Exactly.
Jack the price up enough and nobody will ride it anymore
Raise it any more and the Toei one-day pass would end up cheaper lol
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The congestion rate is a figure Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism publishes every year, showing the ratio of passengers to a train’s rated capacity. 100% means every seat and strap is taken; around 180% is considered the point where you can no longer comfortably read a newspaper or magazine and can barely move, and 177% sits just below that line. The Nippori-Toneri Liner is an Automated Guideway Transit (AGT) system that runs on rubber tires instead of rails and operates driverlessly, designed on the assumption that its cars stay light and small — which makes it hard to add cars or beef up the trainsets the way a conventional railway can. The argument that got the most support in the thread was that demand skews heavily toward the city center in the morning and toward the suburbs in the evening, leaving the reverse direction nearly empty — so investment in more service or longer trains is hard to recoup. In other words, posters framed it less as a simple shortage of equipment and more as a problem baked into the line’s profit structure. Meanwhile, opinions split between those who felt public transit should be tax-subsidized as in Europe, and those taking a more self-responsibility line — if it’s not profitable, that’s just how it is, and if you don’t like it, don’t ride — with no clear consensus reached.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “[Railways] Congestion Rate 177% — Worst in Japan for the 5th Year Running! The Three Barriers Standing in the Way of “Just Add More Trains” — Nippori-Toneri Liner.”
