4 ms·

How does Japan do it? Can we try to copy them because it’s very good. My 45 minute journey into Tokyo from Chiba was around £125 per month.

Ericson2314 5y ago
Piecing together the story from https://pedestrianobservations.com https://pedestrianobservations.com and other places, I would not imitate Japan in this regard. - Japan's terrain is fairly ideal for rail. Yes, mountains make for more work, put people are also naturally congregated near the coast, in valleys, etc. Additionally, the largest cities with the high population form a linear chain from roughly Nagasaki to Tokyo. That means more network effects per distance of rail (there's no penalty separate than time delay for traveling through other cities first). - Japan has perhaps the best policy around land use in the developed world. See https://www.sightline.org/2021/03/25/yes-other-countries-do-housing-better-case-1-japan/ https://www.sightline.org/2021/03/25/yes-other-countries-do-... for some details. This helps greatly with density and clustering around rail stations. - The privatization was triggered by the fright around Japan's big deficits after the 80s boom, and perhaps still maintained with some fear of that. That doesn't make it a good idea, of course, but I'm willing to call it more "defensive neoliberalism" than "offensive neoliberalism", but maybe that makes it a little less ideological given that Japan was the poster child for all the neoclassical economic doomsday predictions? - https://pedestrianobservations.com https://pedestrianobservations.com in particular says the privatization and and general being spooked about more debt holds back some construction on paper, but since the rail is so well established already and operationally profitable, there is less to screw up. In conclusion, I'd say that because Japan gets everything adjacent to rail policy so absolutely well done, and the rail network was already functioning so way, it continues to succeed not because but despite privatization.
- andy_ppp 5y ago
  1) I don’t believe for one second that Japan has better geography than the UK for rail 2) we can do much better with planning, however I’m not sure Japanese planning is the answer, when I lived there I thought most of the accommodation was horrendous. Europeans wouldn’t accept it. 3) is JR Rail etc. private? It seemed too cheap! 4) how is rail profitable in Japan, but not profitable in the UK. It’s cheaper there and far far better!
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    I am no expert in the slightest (I would check the things I linked), I'll try to answer 1) Mountains actually helping is my own pet theory, I should disclaim. Japan does seem to have wild swings in density, while England seems to have people/towns strewn about everywhere and London feels kinda sprawly at certain scales. That said UK obviously has cities / regional clustering at the scale of HSR. Someone should do a proper (fourier?) analysis of sprawl at different different scales and how that effects rail at different scales and until then my theory is just idle speculation, and in any event I don't think Britain can or should blame it's geography when other flat parts of Europe do better, and the Anglosphere clearly sucks at rail on the whole. 2) So Europe is kinda of anti-modern avoiding dense downtowns / CBDs, America is downright evil with it's single family homes, but weirdly still has tall towers people curse driving too. East Asia is largely "correct" in having dense workplaces and living places, which you want if your goal is both less car trips and classic max GDP growth. I don't think the UK should be like Japan in al respects, but London is emphatically way to evenly low-rise, housing is not cheap enough I hear, and all those rich people LARPing landed gentry commuting 3 hours from their quaint South England rural hamlet is a sure sign something weird's afoot. If they get rid of the green belt because no one wants to build taller, I will be sad. 3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group the story is maybe more muddled than I thought, or maybe that's just the terminology for historical reasons. 4) Well, that I think goes back to the unique economics of rail. I think good rail becomes profitable, but profitable bad rail doesn't become good or isn't even possible!
    - fomine3 5y ago
      Mountains don't help. Actually mountains are top pain for building HSR lanes. Not all Japanese live in city with great train/public transport network. Most people outside Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, is heavily depends on their car. (Remember there are 8 practical car manufacturers in the land). Just referencing Tokyo would be good.
  - jabl 5y ago
    4) Japanese railways get about 50% of their income from ticket sales, the rest comes from owning the high value land around the stations (renting, grocery stores, hotels and whatnot).
toyg 5y ago
Japanese capitalism has ... peculiar characteristics. Some companies are "private" in name only, and effectively run in agreement with politicians. Their traditional approach to life, higher degree of respect for authority, and job-for-life structures, make the Japanese case fairly unique and difficult to replicate.

Ericson2314 5y ago

Piecing together the story from https://pedestrianobservations.com https://pedestrianobservations.com and other places, I would not imitate Japan in this regard. - Japan's terrain is fairly ideal for rail. Yes, mountains make for more work, put people are also naturally congregated near the coast, in valleys, etc. Additionally, the largest cities with the high population form a linear chain from roughly Nagasaki to Tokyo. That means more network effects per distance of rail (there's no penalty separate than time delay for traveling through other cities first). - Japan has perhaps the best policy around land use in the developed world. See https://www.sightline.org/2021/03/25/yes-other-countries-do-housing-better-case-1-japan/ https://www.sightline.org/2021/03/25/yes-other-countries-do-... for some details. This helps greatly with density and clustering around rail stations. - The privatization was triggered by the fright around Japan's big deficits after the 80s boom, and perhaps still maintained with some fear of that. That doesn't make it a good idea, of course, but I'm willing to call it more "defensive neoliberalism" than "offensive neoliberalism", but maybe that makes it a little less ideological given that Japan was the poster child for all the neoclassical economic doomsday predictions? - https://pedestrianobservations.com https://pedestrianobservations.com in particular says the privatization and and general being spooked about more debt holds back some construction on paper, but since the rail is so well established already and operationally profitable, there is less to screw up. In conclusion, I'd say that because Japan gets everything adjacent to rail policy so absolutely well done, and the rail network was already functioning so way, it continues to succeed not because but despite privatization.

andy_ppp 5y ago
1) I don’t believe for one second that Japan has better geography than the UK for rail 2) we can do much better with planning, however I’m not sure Japanese planning is the answer, when I lived there I thought most of the accommodation was horrendous. Europeans wouldn’t accept it. 3) is JR Rail etc. private? It seemed too cheap! 4) how is rail profitable in Japan, but not profitable in the UK. It’s cheaper there and far far better!
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  I am no expert in the slightest (I would check the things I linked), I'll try to answer 1) Mountains actually helping is my own pet theory, I should disclaim. Japan does seem to have wild swings in density, while England seems to have people/towns strewn about everywhere and London feels kinda sprawly at certain scales. That said UK obviously has cities / regional clustering at the scale of HSR. Someone should do a proper (fourier?) analysis of sprawl at different different scales and how that effects rail at different scales and until then my theory is just idle speculation, and in any event I don't think Britain can or should blame it's geography when other flat parts of Europe do better, and the Anglosphere clearly sucks at rail on the whole. 2) So Europe is kinda of anti-modern avoiding dense downtowns / CBDs, America is downright evil with it's single family homes, but weirdly still has tall towers people curse driving too. East Asia is largely "correct" in having dense workplaces and living places, which you want if your goal is both less car trips and classic max GDP growth. I don't think the UK should be like Japan in al respects, but London is emphatically way to evenly low-rise, housing is not cheap enough I hear, and all those rich people LARPing landed gentry commuting 3 hours from their quaint South England rural hamlet is a sure sign something weird's afoot. If they get rid of the green belt because no one wants to build taller, I will be sad. 3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group the story is maybe more muddled than I thought, or maybe that's just the terminology for historical reasons. 4) Well, that I think goes back to the unique economics of rail. I think good rail becomes profitable, but profitable bad rail doesn't become good or isn't even possible!
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Mountains don't help. Actually mountains are top pain for building HSR lanes. Not all Japanese live in city with great train/public transport network. Most people outside Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, is heavily depends on their car. (Remember there are 8 practical car manufacturers in the land). Just referencing Tokyo would be good.
- jabl 5y ago
  4) Japanese railways get about 50% of their income from ticket sales, the rest comes from owning the high value land around the stations (renting, grocery stores, hotels and whatnot).

toyg 5y ago

Japanese capitalism has ... peculiar characteristics. Some companies are "private" in name only, and effectively run in agreement with politicians. Their traditional approach to life, higher degree of respect for authority, and job-for-life structures, make the Japanese case fairly unique and difficult to replicate.