The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's bus operations, running in the black since 2003, probably lost money for the first time for fiscal 2011, and the major reason is the dividends from Tokyo Electric Power Co. shares have dried up.
While many bus operators, public and private, have been losing money for more than a decade amid the declining population and rise in other transportation options, the metropolitan government's bus operation has logged profits since 2003.
That doesn't mean, however, that metro bus operations had been a money generator until 2010. The truth is that it had been receiving all of the dividend payments from Tepco shares held by the metro government.