With one year to go until the opening of the 2025 Expo, overall construction is progressing steadily, with the exception of foreign pavilions, for which only about a dozen countries have broken ground.
But as organizers look ahead to recruiting volunteers and planning events for the six-month expo, which runs from April 13, 2025, to Oct. 13, another concern has emerged: transportation logistics.
How to ensure the 28 million visitors expected over six months can easily access the expo site on Osaka’s artificial Yumeshima island via the Chuo Line — which is being extended to service the site and is expected to be ready in time for the start of the expo — and two access roads is a more pressing question than finishing pavilion construction, the head of the Paris-based Bureau of International Expositions has said. The organization is in charge of overseeing and regulating the expo.