The Lawspeaker
01-20-2012, 04:19 PM
The System Behind Japan’s High-speed Rail Network
by Mito Yūko
If the railroad industry were likened to a living organism, the perfect analogue would be plants. Tracks are firmly rooted to the ground, with train lines covering a fixed span of territory. When neighborhoods prosper, so does the industry, with more trains running through them; when they decline, the line also falls into disuse. Train service cannot move to new locales when the number of passengers declines; it continues to live and grow with the community it serves.
Rootedness is a common trait of the industry in countries around the world. When the social environment changes, the industry must adapt to the changes or face extinction. Inasmuch as railroad lines cannot “migrate” to greener pastures like animals, they must develop thoroughgoing strategies for adapting to change.
The single most outstanding feature of rail transport in Japan is its capacity to adjust the entire system in accordance with the operating environment. The railroad industry integrates countless elemental technologies in building up a mammoth system that assigns precise roles for workers to follow and ensures high performance. Japan’s railroad industry has excelled at painstakingly and thoroughly making such adjustments since its inception.
The most notable fruit of such efforts is the clocklike punctuality of Japan’s trains. Shinkansen bullet trains reach their destinations within a minute of their scheduled arrival times around 95% of the time, and the figure for other lines in the Japan Railways system is around 90%.
Given that delays of 10 to 15 minutes are not even considered “late” in most other countries but are regarded as being “on time,” the punctuality of rail service in Japan is in a class of its own. The average delay for a Shinkansen train is around 20 seconds; for other trains operated by the Japan Railways group of companies, it is approximately 50 seconds. In both cases, the average delay is less than a minute.
Remarkably, this punctuality has been a feature of Japan’s rail services—day in, day out— for decades now, regardless of rain and wind. This is a record that spans 45 years for the Shinkansen service and nearly a century (since the late 1910s) for other JR lines. 1 (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fn-1143-1)
Some countries may laugh at this apparent obsession with punctuality, attributing such fastidiousness to Japanese passengers’ maniacal preoccupation with time.
But the real reason that trains run on time is not because of demanding passengers but because it suits the adaptation strategies of the railroad companies. That is, it enables the operators to achieve the safest and most efficient railroad system.
In any country, a system in which all trains run according to schedule is the simplest to manage. 2 (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fn-1143-2) This is because it enables rail operators to achieve maximum carrying capacity with the given equipment and with the least likelihood of error.
This is easy to understand if you imagine what would happen if a train was 20 minutes late on a line where cars normally run at 2- or 3-minute intervals, or if a bullet train, normally running at well over 200 kilometers per hour every 7 or 8 minutes, was delayed for half an hour.
Japan’s railroad operators, who introduced short-interval service from an early date, were well aware that delays would instantly undermine their transport capacity. When changes occur in the time of arrival and departure, they give rise to human error, possibly leading to major accidents. This is a lesson they have learned from bitter experience.
There were times, of course, when long delays were unavoidable, such as during World War II, in the wake of major disasters like earthquakes, or during the period of intense labor unrest in the 1970s. Newly inaugurated train lines were also periodically plagued by breakdowns. The Tōkaidō Shinkansen, which now boasts exceptionally smooth service, for instance, often ran into unexpected problems in its first year or two. Because these trains achieved speeds exceeding 200 kilometers per hour for the first time anywhere in the world, they sometimes ran into problems that were totally unanticipated. With the exception of these disruptions, railroads in Japan have generally been marked by clocklike punctuality. ↩ (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fnref-1143-1)
This is particularly true when trains are being operated at short intervals or at high speeds. Rail service in Japan was inaugurated in 1872, and trains were being run at short intervals before very long. This has become a given in the industry in Japan. ↩ (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fnref-1143-2)
Source: Japan Echo Web (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210)
Mito Yūko
Graduated from Keiō University, where she majored in economics. Active as a nonfiction writer focusing on the relationship between the individual and giant systems. Her works include Teikoku hassha: Nihon shakai ni surikomareta tetsudō no rizumu (Departure On Schedule: The Railway Rhythm Imprinted on Japanese Society).
by Mito Yūko
If the railroad industry were likened to a living organism, the perfect analogue would be plants. Tracks are firmly rooted to the ground, with train lines covering a fixed span of territory. When neighborhoods prosper, so does the industry, with more trains running through them; when they decline, the line also falls into disuse. Train service cannot move to new locales when the number of passengers declines; it continues to live and grow with the community it serves.
Rootedness is a common trait of the industry in countries around the world. When the social environment changes, the industry must adapt to the changes or face extinction. Inasmuch as railroad lines cannot “migrate” to greener pastures like animals, they must develop thoroughgoing strategies for adapting to change.
The single most outstanding feature of rail transport in Japan is its capacity to adjust the entire system in accordance with the operating environment. The railroad industry integrates countless elemental technologies in building up a mammoth system that assigns precise roles for workers to follow and ensures high performance. Japan’s railroad industry has excelled at painstakingly and thoroughly making such adjustments since its inception.
The most notable fruit of such efforts is the clocklike punctuality of Japan’s trains. Shinkansen bullet trains reach their destinations within a minute of their scheduled arrival times around 95% of the time, and the figure for other lines in the Japan Railways system is around 90%.
Given that delays of 10 to 15 minutes are not even considered “late” in most other countries but are regarded as being “on time,” the punctuality of rail service in Japan is in a class of its own. The average delay for a Shinkansen train is around 20 seconds; for other trains operated by the Japan Railways group of companies, it is approximately 50 seconds. In both cases, the average delay is less than a minute.
Remarkably, this punctuality has been a feature of Japan’s rail services—day in, day out— for decades now, regardless of rain and wind. This is a record that spans 45 years for the Shinkansen service and nearly a century (since the late 1910s) for other JR lines. 1 (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fn-1143-1)
Some countries may laugh at this apparent obsession with punctuality, attributing such fastidiousness to Japanese passengers’ maniacal preoccupation with time.
But the real reason that trains run on time is not because of demanding passengers but because it suits the adaptation strategies of the railroad companies. That is, it enables the operators to achieve the safest and most efficient railroad system.
In any country, a system in which all trains run according to schedule is the simplest to manage. 2 (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fn-1143-2) This is because it enables rail operators to achieve maximum carrying capacity with the given equipment and with the least likelihood of error.
This is easy to understand if you imagine what would happen if a train was 20 minutes late on a line where cars normally run at 2- or 3-minute intervals, or if a bullet train, normally running at well over 200 kilometers per hour every 7 or 8 minutes, was delayed for half an hour.
Japan’s railroad operators, who introduced short-interval service from an early date, were well aware that delays would instantly undermine their transport capacity. When changes occur in the time of arrival and departure, they give rise to human error, possibly leading to major accidents. This is a lesson they have learned from bitter experience.
There were times, of course, when long delays were unavoidable, such as during World War II, in the wake of major disasters like earthquakes, or during the period of intense labor unrest in the 1970s. Newly inaugurated train lines were also periodically plagued by breakdowns. The Tōkaidō Shinkansen, which now boasts exceptionally smooth service, for instance, often ran into unexpected problems in its first year or two. Because these trains achieved speeds exceeding 200 kilometers per hour for the first time anywhere in the world, they sometimes ran into problems that were totally unanticipated. With the exception of these disruptions, railroads in Japan have generally been marked by clocklike punctuality. ↩ (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fnref-1143-1)
This is particularly true when trains are being operated at short intervals or at high speeds. Rail service in Japan was inaugurated in 1872, and trains were being run at short intervals before very long. This has become a given in the industry in Japan. ↩ (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210#fnref-1143-2)
Source: Japan Echo Web (http://www.japanechoweb.jp/economy/jew0210)
Mito Yūko
Graduated from Keiō University, where she majored in economics. Active as a nonfiction writer focusing on the relationship between the individual and giant systems. Her works include Teikoku hassha: Nihon shakai ni surikomareta tetsudō no rizumu (Departure On Schedule: The Railway Rhythm Imprinted on Japanese Society).