Transportation in Japan

Most Japanese people traveled on foot until the latter part of the 19th century. The first railway was built between Tokyo and Yamaha in 1872 and many more developed. Japan now has one of the worlds most developed transporation networks.



Mass transportation is well developed in Japan, but the road system lags behind and is inadequate for the number of cars. Road construction is difficult because of the high areas of population and the limited amount of usable land.



Shinkansen are the high speed trains in Japan and they are known as bullet trains. About 250 Shinkansen trains operate daily. The fastest shinkansen train is the 500 series "Nozomi" which operates at a maximum speed of 300 km/h.



Shinkansen trains are known to be very punctual. A train is recorded as late if it does not arrive at the specified time. In 1999, the average lateness per train on the Tokaido Shinkansen was 24 seconds.

Click to see a PDF file of the Subway maps in Tokyo. Use the magnify tool in Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the details of the map.