Overview of railways in Japan

There were about 27,011 km of railway lines under operation in 2006. Passengers riding per year were about 396 billion people km. The volume of freight transportation was about 23 billion ton*km.

Compared with railways in other countries, one of the special features of railways in Japan is the highly dense volume of passenger transportation.

There are four types of railway operating organizations, such as the JR companies, the local government, private railway companies ("mintetsu"), companies invested by local government and private companies ("the third sector").

Here, information about the JR companies and private railway companies are briefly mentioned.

Previously there was a nation-wide Japanese National Railways, JNR. Because of the huge accumulated deficit and labor problems, JNR was privatized and divided into six passenger companies, one freight company, and other organizations in 1987 (The JNR Reform). Shelved deficit and labor cuts resulted in the current success of the JR companies.

The JR companies mainly deal with transportation of trunk lines and transportation in the urban vicinities. Private railway companies mainly deal with commuter transportation. The ratio of transportation run by the JR and private companies is about 2:1.

Information about Japan(2006)

	Area	377,835km²

	Population	12,777,000 people

Information about the JR group (2006)

	Total route length (Wagon km)	19,998km

	Section double lines	5,846km(33%)

	Electrified Section	9,853km(56%)

	Passenger traffic	24 million people/day 682 million people km/day

	Freight traffic	100,000 tons/day 62,973 thousands ton km/day

	Established	1872

HOME RTRI Home Page