Japan’s Shinkansen train operators dream up ideas to attract passengers

TOKYO - Japanese railway companies are using lessons learnt from a decline in passenger numbers during the Covid-19 pandemic to dream up ways to get more people to ride the Shinkansen bullet trains.

Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai), currently allows passengers to charter a train car for various purposes, such as having a wedding ceremony.

Meanwhile, the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) runs a train car in which people are allowed to talk on the phone and have online meetings while they work and study.

Such services are set to continue even after

Covid-19 is reclassified

as a Category 5 disease on May 8.

Conveying hope

JR Tokai has a chartered train service in which passengers can rent a single train car on the company’s Nozomi Shinkansen that runs between Tokyo and Shin Osaka.

Users are able to decorate the car’s interior, such as by laying a carpet in the walkway. Crew member uniforms can also be rented.

Major travel agency JTB Corp and others offer the special package services, except during peak times such as the Bon holiday in summer.

Package prices are not disclosed, as they change depending on the type of service and train cars.

However, the package price is lower than the cost of purchasing all seats in a single car, which has at most 100 seats.

The packages were devised by a group of young employees at an in-house competition for new projects that was held in February 2021.

The proposal was titled “We’ll make your hopes come true”.

The slogan riffs off the name of the Shinkansen, Nozomi, which means “hope”, in the 30th anniversary of Nozomi’s operation.

JR Tokai began accepting applications for the packages in December 2021, and received more than 800 applications in about three weeks. Three of them were implemented.

One was a graduation trip by students of Saitama Municipal Urawa High School, an integrated junior high and high school.

Then final-year student Tomoharu Date submitted the application to JR Tokai, as he thought it would be fulfilling to make the trip with the friends he had spent six years with.

During the March 2022 trip, the students watched a video made by their teachers on a monitor specially set up in the train car, which was decorated with photos to evoke memories of their school days.

“That was the shortest 2½-hours I have ever had,” Mr Date said. “I’ll cherish the journey my whole life.”

Regular service

The other two applications selected by JR Tokai were a wedding ceremony and a party to celebrate a father’s retirement.

The trials were well-received, and JR Tokai fully implemented the service at the end of 2022.

So far, 16 groups have taken advantage of the service. For example, a company signed up to hold a kick-off event for the release of new products.

“People think of the Shinkansen as just a mode of transportation, but I hope passengers will enjoy these types of trips,” said 25-year-old Ukyo Oe, a JR Tokai staff member who is in charge of the service.

Moving offices, fresh food

JR East in March started a service called Train Desk with an eye on expanding teleworking and holding online meetings in trains.

With the service, the company designates a train car per Shinkansen bullet train so that passengers can freely talk over the phone and have online meetings in their seats.

In cooperation with West Japan Railway Company and Hokkaido Railway Company, every Shinkansen that runs on Tohoku, Joetsu, Hokuriku and Hokkaido Shinkansen lines now has a Train Desk car.

Before the pandemic, trials were conducted for a service to transport perishable food from the Tohoku and Hokuriku regions to major stations such as Tokyo Station.

The service, called Hakobyun, was officially implemented in October 2021, and the plan is for it to continue.

“There were calls in the past for coming up with ideas for new projects as passenger numbers are expected to decrease due to the declining population and other factors,” said JR East expert in charge of lifestyle and local development Hajime Nakamura.

Such moves accelerated rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Steps to provide passengers with additional value beyond a means of transportation will be sped up.” THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK