A passenger service revolution? Transport design and passenger experience on Tokyo’s urban railway network, c. 1945–2010

Abstract

This article discusses the history of efforts to shape passenger experience aboard urban railways through transport design. Taking Japan National Railways (JNR) trains as a case study, it examines the development of design interventions and organisational polices seeking to increase passenger comfort on Tokyo’s urban railway network in the second half of the 20th century. Industry and popular accounts have often tied the improvement of transport quality and passenger experience aboard JNR trains to its privatisation in 1987. In contrast, this article shows that passenger-oriented transport design has been an integral component in a continuous project to make urban railway travel more pleasant that long preceded this 1987 change in governance structures but has been held back by organisational and structural challenges. In doing so, it highlights that transport design involves the conscious shaping of both the “hardware” (i.e. physical transport infrastructure) and “software” (i.e. passenger-staff interactions) of service, as well as the backstage modification of organisational structures and processes that facilitate this framework. Built on a qualitative analysis of Japanese industry publications, newspapers, and secondary sources, the article thus contributes to literature on passenger experience, mobilities design, and transport history.

Keywords:

• Urban mobilities
• public transport
• design
• passengers
• Japan
• East Asia
• customer service

Acknowledgements

The guidance of Samuel Mutter and Pete Merriman and two anonymous reviewers has significantly enriched the quality of this article. I am also grateful for the constructive feedback I received at presentations of earlier versions of this article at the University of Tokyo and Aoyama Gakuin University. Any remaining errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Mizutani and Nakamura (2004) importantly clarify that JNR’s privatisation was a gradual and drawn-out process – most JR Group shares initially remained in the hands of a public sector holding company. However, this distinction is not foregrounded in this article as it was not a key concern in organisational and popular discourses surrounding passenger service.

2 Japanese names are given in the order of family name first, followed by the given name, as per Japanese conventions.

3 See Ishī (2022, 106) for a discussion of the various factors that contributed to the reduction of congestion rates.

4 While labour struggles were also connected to the way JNR was organised as a public corporation, a discussion of this is beyond the scope of this article.

5 The presumed betterment this has brought contrasts with the detrimental impact automation can have on the experience of passengers with disabilities. It is thus important to remember whose mobility experiences are being considered.

6 See Mizutani and Nakamura’s (2004) work on JNR’s privatisation process and the role of intermediary organisations such as the JNR Settlement Corporation for more information on how this was achieved.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under Grant 22KF0127 as part of a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research in Japan.