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Japan rail network developments: Japanese railways go for better social integration
Article · September 2016
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Wilfried Wunderlich Tokai University
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Supplement to the Article:
Wilfried Wunderlich, “Innovations on Japanese Rail Net – Railways in Future require better Social Integration”, Internationales Verkehrswesen 68 [3] (2016) 51- 53
(published in German as “Innovations auf Japans Schienennetz - Eisenbahn in der Zukunft benötigt bessere soziale Integration”),
Japan rail network developments: Japanese railways go for better social integration 6. September 2016
By Wilfried Wunderlich
Japan as a country with one of highest population densities in the metropolis areas early recognized the importance of promoting railways. However, the ageing society and internet spread let the railway companies feel the declining passenger figures, especially in rural areas. The aim of this article is to report about countermeasures in order to increase passengers by reporting some success stories of social integration of railways.
The management of railways is becoming more related to marketing and organizing issues rather than the technical ones. This article emphasizes how passenger demand is created by luxury trains, franchise business and the effort of local communities. Not all ideas may be transferable to other countries, but the conclusion is that along with the development of new rail technology, the rail companies should focus more on market analysis and social improvement according to the passenger needs.
1 New rail technology The so-called hybrid trains are using power supply from rechargeable batteries or SOFC fuel cells, when operated in the non-electrified section of the rail network. After testing since 2007 [1], the DMU E 200 is in operation on the Koizumi line. The success led to the construction of new trains such as HB-E210 and E 300. The shunting locomotives HD300 are now produced in large quantities, and have already replaced pure diesel locomotives in Tokyo area.
The linear motor increases the efficiency about 10%. The induction sheet in the middle of the track is part of the motor. Present research tries to keep the gap between the motor on the boogie and the induction track as close as possible [2], because each stray field of electromagnetic waves would reduce the efficiency. This requires stricter limits for the track position and for maintaining it. Newly constructed metro lines use the linear motor technique for propulsion. The first line in Tokyo was the Oedo line in 2000, followed by the Yokohama Green line in 2008, three lines Osaka
Figure 1 The Sendai Metro East-West-line uses the and Kobe. The East-West subway line in Sendai (see figure 1) opened in 2015. linear motor. Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich
On the other hand, standardization has become the main issue, when considering the re-use of train equipment. The habit is that trains with newest technology run on the busiest line, the Yamanote-line in Tokyo. After 10 to 15 years the technology has progressed, so that they are replaced to less-crowded lines, before experiencing a third life on country-side lines or abroad. From this cascade of re-use three or four rail operators can benefit, until the lifetime of the body sets an end.
Improving commuter rail transport in Tokyo
Tokyo area has a dense and cheap public transport system, and a high GDP. As in other East Asian cities [3] the private car owner ship has drastically decreased in the last decades. This is a result of constantly improving the lines [4], the capacity [5] and bottleneck stations [6]. Former inter-urban lines are now almost all interconnected with subway or other lines and has reached meanwhile 15 lines, a trend which started for Olympia 1964 and will continue for Olympia 2020. The interconnection increases capacity, as it is an empirical rule that there is a drop in passengers when the train reaches its terminal station.
The growth of the transport in the capital city Tokyo also clearly emphasized limits for commuters, as the demands of the human body: A daily commuting time from Figure 2 Commuters tend to prefer reserved seats in the door-to-door cannot be longer than 1.5 h so-called “home-liners”, here on Tobu railway each way, even then some passengers fall Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich already asleep, as the body needs the rest.
Hence, commuters prefer more and more reserved seats in the so-called home-liners (figure 2), which costs a little surcharge for the benefit of a rest during the journey. A walk to the station is fun, if it is not longer than 15min, which yield a distance between two railway lines of about 2.5 km in many areas of Tokyo. Passenger flow at crowded platforms requires escalators at least in an average distance of every 2 100m. Every 100 m of a longer distance at a transfer between different lines decreases the number of passengers willing to do so. Station area development [7] has highest priority, as it is considered as the gateway to the rail. Change of station train layout is necessary in average every 20 years in order to adjust to the changed life style in society.
Vertical organization of railway companies means a certain management optimization strategy, in which a supply or service chain works in harmony and in optimized manner with the producers, dealers, operators, and of course the customers. After the interconnection there are some lines in Tokyo, which share trains of more than five different companies. Trains ownership, track ownership, operation, and maintenance have been vertically separated in some cases [4, 8]. When rail managers are “walking in the shoes of a passenger” is the best way to find weak points and optimize a rail system. A new trend is that citizens can participate. Regular lecture meetings are held by an umbrella association, which brings together of semi-professionals, retired professionals, academics, railway fans and interested citizens, in order to discuss further needs for improving details of the rail system. Utilizing such “social capital” besides the professional “human capital” seems to be a new trend of neoliberalism. When the public transport will be improved, the success justifies this method, where all stakeholders can contribute.
Promotion events The railway companies also seek for public attraction, in order to appeal to the costumer friendliness. Recently they organize yearly events mainly during the summer vacations of school children. In Japan visits of train depots started more than two decades ago, when the number of rail-fans started to increase slowly but steadily. Train festivals are designed as family events and people gathering in order to have fun. When visiting such rail festivals at the commuter train depots in Tokyo Metro, it is amazing to see, how young mothers could manage Figure 3: “Open-day at a train depot” is an to carry their baby strollers across siding tracks. attractive event for the whole family. (figure 3 ). Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich
There are several reasons why these events attract so many people. Mascots greet the children at the entrance and provide them a sticker or other presents, as they may be future employees and should have a nice memory and a lot of fun. Rail fans should see the newest rolling stock or the best preserved oldest one. As most of the depots are in the country site, the visit requires the operation of shuttle buses, but their costs seem the organizers worth it. As they are located quite far away from urban center, the revenues from the tickets’ sale of the traveling visitors alone partly compensates and make such events worthwhile to occur. Only very small railway companies charge a small entrance fee of up to 500 Yen, and then visitors can enter the depot the whole year over.
Nevertheless, in spite of the large costs organizing such an event, the media appearance and children memory are most important. Furthermore, sales of calendars, T-shirts, and souvenirs bring additional income. Special and popular items are abandoned railway marks and signs, which let some freaks come to such events as early as possible. Popular photo spots are the carriage lifting for boogie exchange, trains line up, and family pictures in front of a train with children wearing railway uniform, or the ride through a train washer. Long queues or distribution of special reservation tickets document the popularity. A short time later, visitors display their rare experience as videos on the social media in internet.
Similarly, the “rail-day” (Tetsudo-no-hi) on the second October weekend has become such a yearly promotion event in Tokyo. Officially a day in order to commemorate the hard work of railway staff, it is organized by the Ministry of Transport. Rail companies from all over the country display in their booths 3 their newest trains, or sell their souvenirs including calendars. Not only rail-fans use this chance to get newest information, but mainly families entertain their children by taking pictures with mascots or a ride on a narrow-gauge open train installed for this event.
On March 26th in 2016 the Shinkansen connection through the Seikan tunnel to Hakodate in Hokkaido was opened. The operating companies, JR East and JR Hokkaido, were proud to announce that the connection to Tokyo takes only 4 h 2 min, almost within the limit for a day-return-trip. At the propaganda campaign visitors could stand beside the promotion characters (Figure 4). Meanwhile each rail company created its own characters, because
Japanese people resonate strongly on Figure 4: Promotion characters for the personification. Hokkaido-Shinkansen. Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich
Horizontal operation
Japan rail operators are always searching for new sources of budget. The recent target focusses on trains for leisure [9,10]. “The journey is the aim” is the philosophy behind creating additional passenger demand by luxury trains. In Japan all special express trains or train connections have a special “brand name”, in order to distinguish them from the usual trains. Additionally, the so-called “joy-full trains” operate temporarily during flower-blooming seasons or for winter or summer sports. As they are direct link trains they are faster than ordinary transfer connections.
Train catering became popular [10]. Tickets are sold out as soon as they are for sale. They can only be booked via travel agencies, so they do not appear in the usual time table (Figure 5). The engagement in such horizontal business incorporates travel agencies, bus companies for transfer, restaurants for chartering and of course hotels and souvenir shops. Japanese railway companies have also started some actions to attract passengers by achieving greater media attention. While targeting mid-aged people, the TV programs show Figure 5: The target of luxury trains such as the mainly young attractive ladies who report Kintetsu “Shiokaze” are passengers booking a whole about the train travel, eating local food journey. specialties and enjoy a stay at a spa hotel. On Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich the next day they visit local tourist attractions.
Focusing the public mind and interest more on railway usage is for my opinion one of the most attractive ways to increase the number of passengers.
As the markets are saturated everywhere, especially in tourist travel, there is a demand for more attraction and entertainment. More and more details are refined, such as seats, seat cover, livery, performance, etc., in order to make the whole journey an impressive success. The JR Kyushu Shinkansen is known for its luxurious interior. The highest class in comfort ranking is the “Seven stars in Kyushu” train. After the success other JR companies decided to build also such special “resort trains” [9, 10, 11].
Another strategy is franchise business. During the campaign for advertising the new release of a new
4 episode of the “Star Wars” movie, one of the five “Rapit” trainsets of Nankai railway company with its unique design in special livery makes temporarily advertisement (figure 6). Similarly the train connecting to the Universal studio amusement park has a special wrap design. As the Osaka loop line stops at the castle, the artistic design attracts already the attention of tourists who travel there. The advertisement provides a “win-win” situation for all stakeholders, the organizers, the operators and the customers.
Personification of Local trains
Why are the passengers attracted by newly wrapped trains? The uniqueness is certainly one aspect, and as wrapping a present makes it look more desirable, wrapping trains attract more passengers. But in the case of Japanese customers there is another reason. When analyzing which type of wrapping trains are popular, we find that figures from fairy-tales, and even more often fictional Figure 6 “Rapit”-Train of Nankai railway company with manga characters like Kamenrider born temporary advertisement for the new “Star wars” movie 1971, Anpanman (*1973), and Doraemon Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich (*1970) are most popular. From their early childhood Japanese even know the less common figures such as Ninja Hattori-kun (*1964), which run on Himi-line trains, or GeGeGe-no-Kitarō (*1960) on Tottori-line trains. They are standing for experience of (super-)realistic scenes of life, which also have some connections to Japanese mythology. Also, the early TV- characters created in Japan such as Atom-Boy from the 1970-ies, then Kamenraider and Ultraman and so on, became popular as modern versions of Robin-Hood, helping people in trouble. Nearly every Japanese child knows these characters. Even the music is used for announcing the train departure. Railway fans may notice the Atomboy-melody at Takanobaba station on the Yamanote line.
The children book “Thomas the tank engine” was published already in 1946 in England and became popular in Japan in the 1990s through popular broadcasting. The eyes in the face turn around as if a human is talking. Children strongly resonate on such characters as Thomas, because they are easy to recognize. The Fuji-Q Highland amusement park runs a small part as “Thomas”-land. The connecting heavy rail Fuji-Kyūkō line converted a 5000-series train into a Thomas-train in 2007. The interior such as seats, wall, and sealing is decorated with such motives which came originally from the children book (Figure 7). “What you already know, that attracts your mind” is the driving force, why this initiative remains successful after almost ten years. The phenomenon of embodiment in sociology Figure 7 Children strongly resonate on expresses that people need to build up a personal characters like Thomas. relationship to the things, which surround them for Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich sustainable repeating.
The Oigawa railway in Shizuoka prefecture is known as a quasi-heritage railway. In a three-year experiment they painted in 2015 one of the three historic trainsets in the “Thomas” design (picture 8). Even the rolling of the engine’s eyes was realized. Together with the souvenir sell and other side businesses it turned out to be a success. As the trains were booked out weeks ahead, they converted one year later another engine into a red-colored “James” for the peak season in August. 5 The drawbacks of “too fancy” overdoing of this commercialization are “Getting bored by it” or “Loosing the corporate identity”. Historians also claimed, why such budget was not used in order to preserve historic trains. Social decisions always have to balance between different opinions. Indeed some train companies keep at least one train set Figure 8 Oigawa railway realized the “Thomas” engine for a three-year untouched in original livery. experiment. Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich
Local wrapping trains
Technically available since more than two decades, the printed vinyl sheets can be easily attached and later removed to the flat surfaces of any transportation vehicle. While advertisement on tram cars, started already as early as in the 1920s in urban areas, some modern trains are covered with vinyl foils as standard livery. Wrapping trains on local lines became popular in the last five years.
A vehicle wrap describes the marketing practice [12] of completely or partially covering with pictures of local scenes or historical heroes. Wrapping has temporary character, usually not longer than three years in order to keep its uniqueness and specialty. In 2008 the Odakyu company cooperated with a local school. During a school event children painted the layout of a all six wagons of a commuter train, printed it on vinyl. Each time when the children saw their train passing by, they recognized them and cheered.
▪ Rather than boring advertisement for a specific commercial product or company, local warps show usually destination-related motives or characters adding the components of spirituality, history, or aesthetics of this particular region to the train journey (figure 9). There are several social driving forces for such a development.
▪ Local communities feel the necessity of private-public-partnership (PPP) for keeping a train service running and design their local train as an expression of: “This is our train” or “If we loose the train connection, we will be cut of the world, and nobody will recognize our community.”
▪ The opening ceremony itself is a big media event, as well as continuous reports about the train and its journey. “This strengths our community”.
▪ Attracting passengers, especial young families, who recognize a known character from manga, anime, movies or toys on a train: “Let’s ride on it”.
▪ A personalized train makes it easy for young children to identify it as “my favorite train”.
▪ “The journey itself is the goal” is the motto for an unforgettable experience and pulls passengers out of their private car back to public transport on local lines.
▪ Alongside with the outside livery, also the interior, seats, floors and sealing are often decorated and children don’t feel bored during the train journey.
▪ The displayed characters on the wrappings are also part of a franchising strategy, as they might increase the sale of manga, anime, movies or toys.
▪ Bringing back memories on the childhood of the elderly passengers, who visited their home-region after long period of absence because they moved to urban areas for work.
6 So, it can be considered as a win-win situation for all, the passengers, the train operators, publishers and last-but-not-least the artists and their studios itself. The mobility of society is accelerated by social digitals networks and magazines. Local wraps are one contributing factor to this dynamic. Another such challenge is the willingness of local shop- or restaurant- owners to provide attractive atmosphere, when passengers arrive at the end point of a country side line. The rail company Choshi Dentetsu could finally survive after they Figure 9 “Art on trains” promotes local attractions, started selling “Senbei” rice cookies as souvenirs. such as here shown for Osaka castle. These revenues from the side-business were larger Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich than those from ticket sale.
In literature PPP is discussed controversial. The term is used to describe a financial model with very long-term contracts of more than 30 years. The advantage is providing an infrastructure investment positive for the region; on the other hand PPP is vulnerable to unethical behavior of uncooperative companies due to complicated and undefined legal contracts. As in any new assessment, critical success factors (CSF) were evaluated in each of the different models in Europe [13], UK [14], US [15], and East Asia [16, 17]. Different experiences try to avoid such mistakes in recent projects by defining the visions and setting clear regulations. In Japan financing is much more secured [8, 18] and almost all recent PPP projects are considered as successful. Examples are the recovery of Sanriku Railway after the Tsunami disaster [19], the Toyama light rail [20], the idea of Wakayama railway placing a cat as stationmaster [11] or the community buses, which became popular nationwide in Japan. unique design in special livery makes temporarily advertisement. Similarly the train connecting to the Universal studio amusement park has a special wrap design. As the Osaka loop line stops at the castle, the artistic design attracts already the attention of tourists who travel there. The advertisement provides a “win-win” situation for all stakeholders, the organizers, the operators and the customers.
Artificial trains, artificial Destinations
The decreasing passenger numbers are felt especially by the railway companies in the country side. The so-called destination campaigns in order to attack passengers for viewing cherry blossoms, autumn leaves or the ocean are popular advertisement. Appealing alone is not enough, decided some companies and considered why not create artificial destinations. The so-called “Torokko” trains have open windows where passengers smell the fresh air and have better photo chances. Their different design leads to a new travel experience according to the “slow life” movement.
Similar like other railway companies, Kominato railway built their own original train, which is in fact a diesel engine appearing in steam locomotive design (see figure 10). Creation of an artificial destination is a challenge for local communities. The Funaoka hill near Sendai provides beatiful view over the glacial valley and Zao vulcano. The local community decided more than 40 years ago to attract more visitors by planting more than 1000 Japanese Cherry trees for spring, Hydrengia for summer and Marple trees for autuum leave viewing. By helding local festivals the location became very Figure 10 The Kominato “Steamer” in fact is popular. The community built a 1.0 km long monorail in driven by a Volvo diesel engine. 1996 and was expanded in 2009 to two carriages. Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich
7 The so-called “slope-car” (figure 11) is a fusion between monorail, people mover and rack rail [21]. It developed from industrial monorails called “Monorack”, which are in use since 1960s mostly to carry oranges in steep orchards. The trainset in figure 11 has a capacity for 40 passengers and climbs the 18O-slope with a speed of 5 km/h. Most of the slope-cars move automatically and not are legally registered as railways in Japan. More than 80 such slope cars have been built in the last two decades, mostly Figure 11 Planted cherry trees in Funaoka near Sendai became for use in parks, golf courses, at dams, so popular that this slope train was built in 1996. or skiing resorts. Photo: Wilfried Wunderlich
Unique destinations attract Passengers. They “choose with their feet” the destination being reached best and high attractive, will become popular and sustainable. The train journey customers like most, will be done again. Talking with friends and posting on social media will increase further potential customers. If there is harmonic agreement between the stakeholders, citizens, community principals, shop owners, and the railway company, a city attracts customers. Even the opposite conclusion is true. If a city can be easily reached by public transport systems, it means that these citizens have done a lot of effort in the past.
Conclusion
Instead of severe competition in the last decades, it seems that rail transport in Japan is increasing in popularity not only due to ecological needs, but also mainly due to the countermeasures of railway operating companies and the will of the municipalities. Regions with good public traffic connections, with good personal relationship to the passengers and local attractions will attract repeaters to come back and make advertisement. The shown examples of better vertical integration and cooperation of the public bodies are becoming more important rather than technical issues such as efficiency increase, and will help to provide a sustainable future for railways.
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Author:
Dr. Wilfried Wunderlich, Professor for Material-Physics at Tokai University, Hiratsuka, (JP)
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