Railway stations, airports and expressways nationwide were jammed Saturday with travelers returning home from the Bon holidays.
Reserved seats on the Tohoku and Tokaido shinkansen lines, which connect Tokyo with the northeast and Osaka to the west, were almost fully booked throughout the day. The number of passengers in nonreserved cars on some trains exceeded the seats available by 30 percent.
Domestic flights to Tokyo's Haneda airport were also almost fully occupied, with Japan Airlines Co. flights operating at 95 percent capacity on average and All Nippon Airways Co. services at 92 percent, the airlines said.
Booking rates for Japan-bound international flights topped 97 percent on average.
Meanwhile, the Japan Road Traffic Information Center reported that congestion peaked in the afternoon, with a 38-km traffic jam snarling the Tohoku Expressway near the Fukushima Tunnel in Fukushima Prefecture, and a 34-km backup on the Tomei Expressway near the Yamato Tunnel in Kanagawa Prefecture.