A boy in a baseball cap at the front of a line hopped on to a Nozomi shinkansen train just as the last male passenger in a suit got off. In the evening of Aug. 9, the bullet train bound for Hakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, departed Nagoya Station nearly full.
It was a Friday just before the start of the Bon summer holidays, and the Tokaido Shinkansen line, which marked the 60th anniversary of its operations this month, saw a record 483 bullet train trips in a single day. The number means one train departed from the starting stations of Tokyo and Shin-Osaka every two minutes on average.
“It was a milestone,” said Central Japan Railway President Shunsuke Niwa, noting that the operation of the Tokaido Shinkansen is comparable to that of regular commuter trains in terms of frequency of services.
The history of the Tokaido Shinkansen coincides with the progress of transportation capacity. When it started its operations in October 1964, just before the Tokyo Olympics that year, the line ran 60 trains per day, or less than one-sixth the average in the latest fiscal year that ended in March.
Initially, the one-way trip between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka took four hours. In addition to improvements in vehicle performance, operational improvements have made it possible to meet the growing demand for transportation.
“As a primary artery connecting the three major metropolitan areas, we have focused on how to increase the number of trains in operation,” Niwa said.
Over the past 60 years, the Tokaido Shinkansen has transported a cumulative 7 billion passengers.
Behind operational improvements are a group of employees called sujiya — line drawers who make train timetables. These planners draw diagonal suji (lines) to indicate train operations on a sheet of paper; the horizontal axis indicates the time, and the vertical axis, station names.
In the past, sujiya used a pencil and a ruler to draw lines. Today, the task is done mostly on computer screens.
“The evolution of shinkansen has been supported by sujiya who make timetables based on precise demand predictions and by staff on the ground to meet such plans,” said Haruhisa Ogawa, 49, chief of shinkansen operations at JR Central who oversees its current team of 18 planners.
The improvement of the Tokaido Shinkansen services was symbolized by the launch of the Nozomi bullet train service in 1992, which cut the travel time between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka to 2½ hours. There was one Nozomi train service per hour in 1993, but the number was increased to seven in 2003, and 10 in 2014.
Every time a timetable revision was planned, “limitations” were mentioned in terms of operations and staffing, but the company has managed to overcome the hurdles.
In the latest revision made in March 2020, the number of Nozomi services was increased to 12 per hour. When such a plan was first considered in 2015, there were concerns within the company that it would be “unfeasible.”
To seek ways to realize the plan, however, sujiya went to all the Tokaido Shinkansen stations and sought advice from each of them.
One of the most creative ideas involved the shortening of the turnaround time at Tokyo Station.
The timing of deceleration before arrival and the process of preparations for departure were reviewed to save a few seconds here and there. The cleaning time for the interior of cars was reduced by two minutes by improving the workflow.
All the time savings made the new timetable possible.
Today, the Tokaido Shinkansen Line regularly runs 314 bullet trains a day. On top of the regular trips, planners make timetable adjustments almost on a daily basis by adding extra train services depending on the season and day of the week.
The 483 bullet train trips on Aug. 9 were a culmination of the company's maximization of its rolling stock and workforce.
“The crew, station staff, maintenance workers and all other personnel on site were able to work as one,” said Kazuya Izawa, 39, who made the timetable that day.
He notes that demand for bullet train services has been robust, with passenger numbers recovering after the end of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
At the end of September, Izawa stationed himself on a shinkansen platform at Nagoya Station during the morning and evening rush hours to assess whether the number of trains was sufficient for the passengers in each time period, and explore whether there was room for improvement.
This summer also forced the Tokaido Shinkansen to make changes to its timetables, including planned service suspensions due to special alerts on the Nankai Trough earthquake and an approaching typhoon.
“The safety of passengers comes first,” Izawa said of his responsibility as a planner. “Based on that premise, we will continue to think about how we can improve the convenience of transportation.”
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