Japanese railway firms aim to attract passengers via unique station events

TOKYO – Railway companies are seeking to attract passengers by taking advantage of their stations in unique ways to boost ridership numbers, which have yet to recover since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

One such initiative involves using stations for interactive games tied to a movie, while another has created a virtual station for online visitors to interact with each other.

The companies are holding such events in a bid to get people to visit stations, and become passengers, while also hoping that stations and the buildings they are in become destinations, strengthening their real estate business.

Tokyo Metro is holding an event called the Tokyo Metro escape game in collaboration with the movie 8-ban Deguchi (Exit 8 in English), until Nov 3.

The film is a live-action adaptation of a video game in which the player searches for the real exit while paying attention to anomalies that appear in underground passageways. The event was planned to coincide with the movie’s release in theatres.

Participants in Tokyo Metro’s event visit designated stations in real life and are challenged to find mysterious objects and abnormalities.

Osaka Metro is also holding a similar event.

By collaborating with the high-profile movie, Tokyo Metro wants to increase metro ridership on weekends, when the number tends to be low, and increase the number of people who visit commercial facilities around its stations.

Tokyo Metro president Akihiro Kosaka said: “This is an opportunity to let people ride metro trains with a sense of pleasure while imagining scenes from the movie.”

West Japan Railway (JR West) operates Virtual Osaka Station, a digital twin of real-life Osaka station in the metaverse virtual reality space.

Users can interact in the virtual station at places such as the clerk’s office.

Since the service began in 2022, more than 45 million people have visited Osaka station’s digital twin.

Scenes from the virtual station are live streamed in the real station, and goods related to the virtual station are sold only inside the physical station. With this effort, JR West has succeeded in attracting people to visit the real station.

Another attempt to make a station itself a tourist spot involves Yotsugi station, of Keisei Electric Railway in Katsushika ward in Tokyo. Visitors can view illustrations of the popular manga series Captain Tsubasa displayed on walls, stairways and many other places in the station building.

Mr Yoichi Takahashi, the manga artist who created the series, grew up near the station, and collaborated on the project. Many foreign tourists have visited the station.

Railway companies are eager to draw passengers back to stations, partly because they feel a sense of crisis over declining numbers in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The total number of train passengers in fiscal year 2023 was 22.6 billion, according to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry. That was still below the 25.2 billion in fiscal year 2018 before the pandemic.

Train ridership has fallen with the adoption of teleworking and online conferences. Mid- and long-term growth is also hard to foresee because of the declining population.

This is why railway companies are enhancing their real estate businesses.

Since many railway companies own plots of land at stations and prime locations nearby, they expect that by attracting customers via station initiatives, stations can become destinations, leading to an increase in use of railways and station buildings.

Data-driven new business development is also possible.

By analysing user data from Virtual Osaka station, JR West aims to generate revenue by using such data to propose advertising and events to other companies.

“Brand values of railways and stations are still high,” said Mr Tomomi Nagai, chief analyst at Toray Corporate Business Research.

“If consumer needs and opinions are carefully analysed, this could uncover demand and create new business opportunities over the medium to long term.” THE JAPAN NEWS/ ASIA NEWS NETWORK