Looking at this map makes me want to move to Tokyo. Sure, the trains stopping at night makes nightlife and catching a morning flight annoying, but train culture* of just making plans to meet at a train station with a friend is so much better than the car dependent place I live.
*It's not unique to Tokyo, but I've spent extended periods of time in cities with trains and this is what we often did. Tokyo just has lots of train lines.
Tokyo Just Works. It is inspiring to see a well-functioning civil society. Most emblematic of this is the trains that always arrive on time, are always clean, and rarely get delayed. There is still so much more potential to be had around the world.
Visiting for the first time recently from North America felt kind of like the fabled Gorbachev-sees-an-American-supermarket moment for me. Not only do the trains go everywhere, frequently, and reliably, but the condition of everything was astounding.
The cleanliness was a big part of it, but also just how non-abused everything was. I was there for a week and didn't once see a tag carved into the seats or walls of a train car or smell urine on a platform. I don't think I even saw a single piece of litter on a train. The respect with which people treat public property was genuinely eye-opening.
I wish there were some kind of transferable lesson that we could apply here where dingy and defaced public infrastructure is just accepted as "the way things are in a big city," when it's demonstrably not inevitable.
I currently live in Singapore and when I went back to the UK after almost a year, one of the things that was most jarring was all the graffiti everywhere.
You become blind to it when you live there but when you suddenly realise places _dont_ have to be tagged when they shutter for the night. (If they even shutter at all)
I do think the cleanliness of Tokyo is (at least) two factor: People are more clean in public (less graffiti, less littering, less spitting, less gum, less urine) and the maintenance spend for public infrastructure (roads, trains, etc.) is higher. That combination is the magic. Restaurants feel similar as well. Many are freakishly clean by any US/CAN/EU/AUS/NZ standards. Again, I would say the key is a combination of neat(er) customers and fastidious cleaning by the restaurant staff. Of course, there are still dirty places, but they are rare.
When you go hiking in the countryside, it is common to see people carrying a small plastic bag to pickup any garbage along the trails. Again, compared to other hiking destinations, the trails here are freakishly clean all the time.
not a lot of public trashcans in these places. you carry a bag for your trash because that's the only way you're getting rid of it, and littering fines can be non-trivial.
For example digital services for essential government services were brought only recently (mynumber). Its decent but ways behind anything in europe. Digital services in general suck in japan, especially banking where the forms and backends cant handle foreign names, so you often have to send snail mail in the end. Faxes are still common place. Lots of stuff is still handled in paper even if they are submitted digitally so many things are painfully slow, especially anything visa/immogration related. With digital cash there are annoying walled garden economies and i could go on.
General stores, restaurant, and public transport work really well however.
I will not touch on societal issues or politics, as everyone has their own view on these matters.
I guess it does for locals but talking as a tourist who has been there for 3 days, using the train is confusing as hell. First, you have to pay your tickets in cash every time (the "IC cards" are not sold anywhere due to a chip shortage) and the machines do not accept foreign credit cards. Second, when you purchase your ticket, your destination station may or may not be in the list of available destination stations, so you sometimes have to pick an intermediary station instead. Then when you leave, you have to go to a ticket counter and pay whatever you owe (again, in cash only). Lastly, the similarity in station names, such as Nippori Station and Nishi-Nippori Station, added to the confusion. I apologize for the venting.
The IC card system and how it became what it is today is a _fascinating_ topic, tied deeply with the superb automated gates at Japanese train stations in. I wonder if people would be interested in reading a longform-ish piece on these..
This was my exact experience. Download Suica app, figure out that the 3rd option is "register without id/account", put 1000 yen in and go. Top off anytime with Apple Pay. Never had to fiddle with cash at the train station. Honestly one of the most convenient things about Japan.
Thanks but on Android I was getting "This item isn't available in your country". I tried to bypass Play Store and download the APK directly but was getting a bunch of errors. I am leaving tomorrow but I definitely will try to get an IC card/app next time I visit because manually purchasing tickets with cash all the time isn't great.
It has been a few years since I last looked, but most Android phones outside of the Japan market didn't have NFC hardware that was specced to meet the tighter Mifare timing tolerances required for the Japanese version of the spec (iirc the phone had, like 1/10th the time to respond back vs US readers). On the other hand, every modern iPhone sold globally was specced to be able to support the Japanese variant of Mifare (and thus could have Suica in Apple Wallet).
Has to be verified unrooted phones, which are mostly local Android phones + ALL iPhone 8/SE2 or later. e.g. SC-02K and SCV38 will work but SM-G960N won't. By the way, commuter passes works as regular cards outside of specified routes or valid-thru dates, so long it has seen use within last 10 years.
It won't work on Android with a foreign phone because your phone doesn't have the Felica chip. All Japanese Android phones have this chip, and all Apple phones worldwide have it, so the iPhone users don't have this problem.
Apple adds FeliCa and NFC radios to all iPhones worldwide. Only Android phones sold in Japan have FeliCa radios, worldwide models only have a NFC radio.
Suica working with the standard wallet app alone and being able to reload from a US MasterCard makes it hard to beat for convenience. Don’t even have to stop at a ticket machine or ATM to top up, just be sure to pull funds from a card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees.
https://atadistance.net/2023/08/01/how-long-will-the-suica-c...
Interesting, I was not aware of this. Good to know as I have some relatives coming over this week. And yes, like most digital cash in japan it's usually heavily walled garden. You can only charge your Suica or buy ticket with JR East's View credit card :) To their credit though, IC cards work very well but seems like you were unfortunate with the chip shortage.
My understanding is that there is now a special IC card for visitors only, "Pasmo Passport", but it's only available for sale in a few locations: https://www.pasmo.co.jp/visitors/en/buy/
No, it's actually out of sale. Makes no sense but it is. Welcome Suica(the red ones) and PASMO Passport cards sold at airports are supposedly still available.
You can use your phone (iPhone for sure, dunno about others) to add a Suica card (and others) through the Wallet app. Then you just tap your phone and go.
There are Fare adjustment machines in the stations for the cases you mentioned. You don't have to handle cash or talk to attendants.
Station names can definitely be confusing though, even for natives.
Other sibling comments have mentioned using your phone or the Pasmo passport but I just got back from Tokyo last week and there's a machine selling the Welcome Suica, a time limited card where you lose whatever was left on the card, at Haneda and Narita. I picked one up when my flight landed and was able to top it up and use it all throughout my 3 week trip.
Nishi Nippori is just West Nippori. It’s hardly different from how other countries name train stations (e.g. Berlin Westkreuz vs Ostkreuz, and in London Hounslow East, Hounslow Central and Hounslow West)
>I guess it does for locals but talking as a tourist who has been there for 3 days, using the train is confusing as hell
When I was a tourist here several years ago, I had no trouble at all. I just used Google Maps. It tells you exactly where to go, which platform to stand on, when the train will arrive, which car to sit in for most efficient transfer, etc.
>First, you have to pay your tickets in cash every time (the "IC cards" are not sold anywhere due to a chip shortage)
No one uses cash, except some tourists. The chip shortage thing is a very, very recent problem. All the locals don't have this problem; they have IC cards they've had for years, or they use their phone. According to some other comments here, they do sell special IC cards for tourists at the airports now.
>and the machines do not accept foreign credit cards.
There's a good reason for this. 1) fees, and 2) credit cards are incredibly slow. Japan developed the Felica chips used in IC cards specifically because they needed to be extremely fast to handle the incredible foot traffic going through the fare gates. Using credit cards (even if the processors lifted all the fees) would slow everything down and cause a massive backup.
>you have to go to a ticket counter and pay whatever you owe (again, in cash only)
Well yeah, that's what you get for using old-fashioned paper tickets.
>Lastly, the similarity in station names, such as Nippori Station and Nishi-Nippori Station,
You think it's confusing to have "X Station", and "West X Station"? The US has the exact same thing: in the DC metro system, there's Falls Church East and Falls Church West stations, for instance, or Farragut West vs. Farragut North in downtown DC.
Yes, I am sure it works fine for locals and for tourists that are able to get an IC card, I was just relating my personal user experience. And I have to mention I was in Shenzhen just before, where the UX is really top notch (just need an app on your phone which is linked to a credit card), so my expectations were perhaps a bit high. I haven't used the DC metro so can't really comment on whether it is equally confusing or not. Another problem which I forgot to mention is that sometimes the colors in Google Maps didn't match those in the metro.
>Yes, I am sure it works fine for locals and for tourists that are able to get an IC card, I was just relating my personal user experience.
You were relating it as if it's normal. It's not.
It's like going as a tourist to NYC in 2012, getting hit by Hurricane Sandy, and then complaining that NYC is plagued by hurricanes and flooding and a terrible city to visit as a result. (Sandy was an event that NYC hadn't experienced in, I don't even know, generations?)
Buying paper tickets for local trains/subways simply hasn't been normal in Japan for quite a long time. And according to other posters here, you could have bought an IC card at the airport anyway, but for some reason you didn't do that or ask about it. When I came here as a tourist, buying an IC card was the second thing I did after I got off the plane and got out of immigration/customs, right after visiting an ATM and getting some cash. It's one of the most basic things about visiting Japan, and should have been one of the first things mentioned on any website that you'd find when googling about traveling in Japan.
It's not even much different than the US: if you want to visit DC or NYC, you have to have a stored-value fare card (or phone app these days), and unlike Japan, those cards are only good on those cities' metro systems, whereas Japan's IC cards can generally be used everywhere in the country (with some weird exceptions, but Suica and Pasmo generally work almost everywhere). And unlike the city-specific cards in the US, you can return the IC cards when you leave Japan and get your whole deposit (plus remaining stored value) back.
>Another problem which I forgot to mention is that sometimes the colors in Google Maps didn't match those in the metro.
I've never noticed that. The colors for the Tokyo Metro lines are all correct in my daily experience; I'm not so sure about the other lines, but Tokyo Metro makes more use of color-coding for different lines AFAICT.
On iOS, you can create a virtual IC card from Apple Wallet and top it up with a credit card from your Wallet. This doesn't work on foreign Android devices because only Apple includes the necessary hardware worldwide.
As a tourist who just spent a week there, you either want to use your phone (though this is a bit harder with Android than iPhone AFAIK. All iPhones just work, only some Android devices do.) or get a passmo passport which works for the trains, but not anything else the IC cards work for.
I ignored the names and worked purely off the station numbers, knowing that my hotel was on the chiyoda line, and google maps.
Specifically for most Android devices, only Japan specific variants of each model carry the hardware necessary to work with Japanese IC cards. To my understanding the only exception are Pixels but those require some tinkering to get the hardware to actually work if they’re purchased outside of Japan.
iPhone and Apple Watch work OOTB since iPhone 8/X and Series 4.
I lived in a Canadian city with the worst public transit. I found it so frustrating that I couldn't even leave the city without owning a car. No bus, no train. Nothing. Living in Tokyo I can take the train or bus to the beach, mountain, a forest. It's wonderful and does wonders for my mental health. Access to all the beautiful nature in Canada is restricted to those with cars.
There are pretty good mass transit systems in Hong Kong, London, Singapore, Taipei. Bangkok's is good but it is criminally poor in coverage and overwhelmed in peak hours (which is nearly all the time). Every major Chinese city has one. Sydney's is OK too but has poor coverage in certain areas and is aging disgracefully. Paris' metro ghetto is uniquely urine-smelling and poorly maintained. Prague's is good. Berlin's is good. New York. I mean, why would you move to Japan? I don't understand why people like the place.
None of them are comparable. The density of Tokyo system is just 10x of anything else. You basically can get to any point in the city with a 30min trainride + 10 min walk, barely any waiting at all even with multiple connections.
I just lived in Tokyo for a year, and if good public transit was a main criteria for a place to live, Tokyo would be number 1 for me without a question.
That coverage is seriously liberating. Only in Tokyo have I felt so empowered to spontaneously go and do things, because it’s never an ordeal to do so.
In the US a car affords some freedom but driving feels like a chore, not to mention all of the associated costs and pains.
the stress. hate driving in a city, esp. one where pedestrians dgaf and will just walk into the road.
meanwhile I lived in Melbourne (Preston) for a bit and the trams were great. walk out, hop on the tram, into the city before too long, and then do whatchu gotta do. getting from suburb to suburb might be hard without having to go to Central and then back out, but they have busses for that.
I don’t like it that much, it’s just one of the least worst places.
Doesn’t the tube get very hot in the summer? The UK has very high taxes on airfares so even award tickets purchased with miles will have high costs which is why most frequent flyers will fly to France instead and take the train.
Chinese cities have good politics but the internet situation is a non-starter. (edit: Chinese cities have good subways! I made a freudian slip when writing).
Bangkok’s system is nice but not enough lines/coverage so you often need a Grab to supplement it. And the sidewalks are too dirty (I’ve been there 6 times so it’s not that I’m allergic to dirty sidewalks, but if I move somewhere I want to have clean sidewals)
Singapore has a very nice system but Singapore is so expensive (especially alcohol!).
Any muslim countries are a non-starter because they heavily tax alcohol to discourage consumption.
Alcohol is not too pricy in Japan, the 300 yen bar in Osaka is pretty great and it’s easy to meet friends any night. The subway system is good but the JR is too expensive compared to Jetstar or one of many many low cost carriers.
Seoul is also clean with good subway coverage, but Itaewon is too hilly if you like cycling and it takes forever to commute if you live on the other side of the city but still want the food in Itaewon.
Taipei is clean but too poor in all honesty. I expected better because of Taiwan’s dominance in tech but yeah. It does have a decent train system.
I love Malaysia but the KL train system doesn’t even go to Mont Kiara!
Sydney is a no go because AU TZ for video games is empty and many games don’t even put servers for Oceania.
> Seoul is also clean with good subway coverage, but Itaewon is too hilly if you like cycling and it takes forever to commute if you live on the other side of the city but still want the food in Itaewon.
To be fair
- There's electric bikes instantly rentable all over the city that are perfect for dealing with hills
- Itaewon is only a tiny part of the city and the huge majority of the remainder isn't nearly as hilly
- Except for Middle-Eastern (and maybe traditional "US") food, all other kinds of cuisine have at least as good if not better options outside of Itaewon
Bangkok's is still inadequate but I give them credit because they had a late start compared to most of the other cities on the list. They've built about 150 miles of rail transit within the last 25 years.
I remember when I grew up in Bangkok in the 90's and saw the pillars go up for the Skytrain, it still seemed like a pipe dream at the time.
New York's mass transit is decaying while the MTA fails to build anything but prestige projects at exorbitant cost. 'Metro ghetto', 'urine-smelling' and 'poorly maintained' is exactly how I'd describe it also.
re: New York. The only part of New York that matters is NYC and NYC subway stations are filthy and dangerous because they don’t have platform doors. The parks are nice and I love running alongside the Manhattan coast and the food is amazing, but it’s much too dirty and always looking over your shoulder to make sure no one will mug you
(and the same applies to Boston except the subway system is too tiny, you can’t even take the subway into Brookline, which is disappointing because there is good pizza there).
Very cool. Even the building-by-building graphics seem to be correct: a boxy version of my house in Yokohama is in the correct location and has the correct height relative to its neighbors. The map also shows—correctly—that it is raining at this moment in Tokyo but not in Yokohama.
You can (most likely!) thank the OSM project for the building footprint and height data (along with pretty much all the street data in this map).
I've recently been playing with shademap.app and it's pretty incredible for planning a solar panel install. Google Earth has always been able to show you shadows for any given time of day, but only for natural features (mountains, hills, generally the shape of the earth), but doesn't take into account buildings. Shademap is using OSM building data to calculate buildings as well.
Thanks for the shoutout. Shademap is actually really popular with the Japanese and a subset of them use it to plan photography of...trains [1]. It's a fascinating subculture I didn't even know existed.
I’m currently visiting Tokyo and found the building where I’m staying too. This is so cool!
I’ve enjoyed seeing the buses move around on Google maps too. And all the bus times are so accurate at the stops. I wish every city made all this data available.
Tokyo’s transit system (or any other characteristic of the city people here so often praise) doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
The US cannot reproduce it. And no, the reason has nothing to do with cars which people here so love to blame.
Even if a US city were to successfully reproduce all the hardware parts of the Tokyo train system, it would quickly devolve into something like the NYC subway with all its problems.
Part of it comes down to the country’s culture which has more respect for public utilities overall, but I think another big aspect is that businesses in Japan aren’t nearly as bad as their western counterparts about cutting corners to juice profits, which means things like trains get the level of maintenance and care required to keep them clean, timely, and functional.
Of course Japan has its own set of issues — no country is a utopia after all — but livability in the major metro areas is not among them.
I'd love to hear how it has nothing to do with cars, given the plethora of evidence that car use, the culture around car ownership and the lobbying of car companies created and continue to create a lot of the problems preventing effective public transport development not just in the US but all over the world.
they were specifically saying that even if the infrastructure existed, regardless of lobbying and political influence, it would not work. obviously lobbying and influence is the reason we can't even try.
I just came from working remotely from Japan for almost two months. One of the highlights was the infrastructure for sure. Tokyo feels like one of the most liveable cities I've ever been to in terms of urban planning and public services. It's surprising how far away from Tokyo you can go in what still feels like the public transport happy path (I went all the day down to Kagoshima) and how many highly populated cities you can reach along the way.
Now I'm back to Dublin where I'm permanently based and I feel a type of homesickness that seems to be related to missing that level of "liveability" that Japan has. A lot of things sound like coming straight out of a nightmare for some westerners, such as small houses, small rooms, narrow streets, no sidewalks, small cars and vans. But I enjoy that environment way more.
This is the kind of thing that makes me aware just how far in "the future" we live. Just imagining trying to explain to myself 40 years ago about what information we'll have at our fingertips. Amazing site!
The London Underground used to have a freely accessible API for real-time data as well, it was useful to curl it to plan when to leave the house :) Sadly no longer.
As far as I can tell it's still free for relatively low request rates, but you need to register an account/get an app id from them (I've been doing some testing with it recently as part of an app)
I wonder how the map handled the accuracy issue of the timetable data: the public timetables are only accurate to the minutes, but the trains on the map are not only arriving / departing at 0 second. I believe accurate timetables that are accurate to 5 seconds (actual accuracy) are not published anywhere. I'm now very curious how accurate the trains on the map are, as there might be up to 55 seconds of error.
I don't have too many opportunities to take the trains nowadays, and when I had to take the trains I always forget to check this.
Currently sitting on the Yokohama line to Hachioji, a little before Hashimoto station. Looking at the map the train had already reached Hashimoto. Seems like we're running 30 seconds or maybe 1 minute late.
The hype about "on time all the time" is a well-loved-by-foreign-media myth in Japan. Yes, many trains are nearly perfect (Shinkansen, especially), but plenty of Tokyo metro lines are delayed by a few minutes during the daily rush hour crush. The point: They run so many damn trains, you can just get on another one.
Because commuters often have tight connections to make and if a train is two minutes late that can be enough to miss the next train and be late to work, which is a big no-no.
Great! I wanted to make the same for Istanbul for years but never got a chance spend time on it. It is a perfect example of visualizing time series data. Makes me want to move to Tokyo.
My question: Do you fetch the routes somewhere or you simulate the trip start-end times?
They work for me too, despite my slightly hardened browser (firefox, private browsing, no third party cookies, resist finger printing, adblock plus, LibReditect replacing Youtube Embeds with Invidious ones).
I was unsure about the 3D aspect (especially since the map surface itself seems flat), but it was quite impressive clicking on live feeds and seeing them match the display (some trains seem to be missing from the live map, and some live cameras are delayed a bit compared to the activity shown on the map -- timestamps sometimes lag by 40s or so).
*It's not unique to Tokyo, but I've spent extended periods of time in cities with trains and this is what we often did. Tokyo just has lots of train lines.