The Tokyo Metropolitan Government set up a panel Friday to come up with a plan to improve coordination among the capital's train, bus and subway systems.
"(Tokyo) has a highly condensed and safe transportation system, unlike any other in the world. But each transportation mode, including buses and subways, lacks coordination in terms of how to link with each other," Gov. Yoichi Masuzoe said in overseeing the panel's establishment at City Hall.
Masuzoe said the transportation system should be made linguistically "barrier-free" in time for the 2020 Olympics, noting that signs in train stations offer little help on how to make connections for people who don't read Japanese.
He urged the panel, headed by Nihon University civil engineering professor Takayuki Kishii, to propose a transportation system that can be a model for the world's biggest cities.
Proposals from the panel, whose talks will also cover roads and bicycle traffic, will be inserted into Tokyo's comprehensive transportation policy by the end of next March. The panel has 22 members, including academics, Tokyo bureaucrats and police representatives.