6 ms·

Living here, the Yamanote Line opened in 1885 and with its current form from 1956 has become "The One Ring (Line)" in that it makes a ring connecting ALL of the

Living here, the Yamanote Line opened in 1885 and with its current form from 1956 has become "The One Ring (Line)" in that it makes a ring connecting ALL of the major stations in Tokyo, and from which basically all of the mentioned lines in the article depart or go through. For example, you want to go west you'd go to Shinjuku (station on the Yamanote line) and take the Chuo. North? Either Ikebukuro or Ueno, on the north-west/north-east of the Yamanote line. Shibuya (south-west), Shinagawa (south-east) and Tokyo (east) stations are also within this. And those are the biggest stations in Tokyo, all connected through a circle line (in both directions) with trains that are ~2 mins from each other and completely full on peak times. In certain combinations it might be faster to go through "smaller" lines crossing Tokyo Station, like from Shibuya to Tokyo I'd get the Ginza Line because it goes straight. But this circle + rays of lines that happens thanks of Yamanote IMHO would have collapsed if there was instead only a single central station in the middle managing these movements between the major lines from outside Tokyo.

masklinn 5y ago
Circle lines seem to be making a comeback (or finally be getting popular?) e.g. Moscow’s mcl and bcl, paris’ line 15) and it’s really heartening to see. Circle lines tend to have pretty low distance/trip ratios but high value and great occupancy.
- lmm 5y ago
  Circle lines are unpopular nowadays because of poor resilience, just as lines with many branches are falling out of fashion (particularly as integrated ticketing reduces the advantages they once had) - indeed it's not so long ago that London deliberately "unwound" its circle line. Although the Yamanote line is a circle, it's very much an off-centre one that swings out through the suburbs on one side and not the other. And it's worth noting that Japan is pretty far behind in terms of integrated ticketing for occasional journeys (although commuter passes are integrated between different companies).
  - mlindner 5y ago
    > And it's worth noting that Japan is pretty far behind in terms of integrated ticketing for occasional journeys (although commuter passes are integrated between different companies). Firstly, Japan actually has very good integrated ticketing, namely you don't buy tickets at all. You wave your phone/card over the stall on entry and wave it again at whatever station you exit from, and the system calculates the fare at exit. (And it's discounted from the price of actually buying tickets.) Japanese train station gates allow more people to move in and out of the station than any other model of station I have seen in any country. Secondly, the over-focus on integrated ticketing misses that the important thing is integrated payment. It wasn't the case until some number of years ago, but nowadays everything but the most rural of rural lines has a single shared national system for IC card payment that is easy to use. The IC cards can even be used at most grocery stores and restaurants. They even work for foreigners and are a great alternative to cash to avoid having to calculate payments.
    - lmm 5y ago
      > Firstly, Japan actually has very good integrated ticketing, namely you don't buy tickets at all. You wave your phone/card over the stall on entry and wave it again at whatever station you exit from, and the system calculates the fare at exit. You missed having to go through interchange gates or, more commonly, exit and re-enter when you're changing lines. The fact that ticket payment is easy mitigates the damage somewhat, but the fact remains that tickets aren't integrated and this has genuine costs; people often end up travelling a longer way around so that they can stay within a single operator's network, because the fare structure incentivises them to do that.
      - masklinn 5y ago
        It’s also a common tourist trap: first time around in Tokyo, you don’t realise how the networks work and that ticketing is not integrated (but payment is), and you end up paying way more in fares than you might have expected.
        5y ago
- franciscop 5y ago
  Oh something I totally missed to explain is that Tokyo is not built like most European/American cities, or even most Japanese cities; it's a city of cities so to speak, so the circle is not around a "life center" (it's somewhat around the imperial family castle, but there's no normal people living there). The circle line stops on the important "cities" that conform Tokyo, which are built in somewhat of a circle itself! The big buildings and everything is on the Yamanote line then. And it's fairly big, not what you'd have as a circle line in most EU cities, it takes a bit over 1h to go around in train. A bit like London, but more extreme.
  - quantumwannabe 5y ago
    That is how the newer American cities are laid out as well. Look at a map of Los Angeles or Dallas-Fort Worth or any other sprawling American city and you'll find the exact same layout as Tokyo: many small cities that grew into one giant city, with many of them having their own "downtowns"/"CBDs".

masklinn 5y ago

Circle lines seem to be making a comeback (or finally be getting popular?) e.g. Moscow’s mcl and bcl, paris’ line 15) and it’s really heartening to see. Circle lines tend to have pretty low distance/trip ratios but high value and great occupancy.

lmm 5y ago
Circle lines are unpopular nowadays because of poor resilience, just as lines with many branches are falling out of fashion (particularly as integrated ticketing reduces the advantages they once had) - indeed it's not so long ago that London deliberately "unwound" its circle line. Although the Yamanote line is a circle, it's very much an off-centre one that swings out through the suburbs on one side and not the other. And it's worth noting that Japan is pretty far behind in terms of integrated ticketing for occasional journeys (although commuter passes are integrated between different companies).
- mlindner 5y ago
  > And it's worth noting that Japan is pretty far behind in terms of integrated ticketing for occasional journeys (although commuter passes are integrated between different companies). Firstly, Japan actually has very good integrated ticketing, namely you don't buy tickets at all. You wave your phone/card over the stall on entry and wave it again at whatever station you exit from, and the system calculates the fare at exit. (And it's discounted from the price of actually buying tickets.) Japanese train station gates allow more people to move in and out of the station than any other model of station I have seen in any country. Secondly, the over-focus on integrated ticketing misses that the important thing is integrated payment. It wasn't the case until some number of years ago, but nowadays everything but the most rural of rural lines has a single shared national system for IC card payment that is easy to use. The IC cards can even be used at most grocery stores and restaurants. They even work for foreigners and are a great alternative to cash to avoid having to calculate payments.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > Firstly, Japan actually has very good integrated ticketing, namely you don't buy tickets at all. You wave your phone/card over the stall on entry and wave it again at whatever station you exit from, and the system calculates the fare at exit. You missed having to go through interchange gates or, more commonly, exit and re-enter when you're changing lines. The fact that ticket payment is easy mitigates the damage somewhat, but the fact remains that tickets aren't integrated and this has genuine costs; people often end up travelling a longer way around so that they can stay within a single operator's network, because the fare structure incentivises them to do that.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      It’s also a common tourist trap: first time around in Tokyo, you don’t realise how the networks work and that ticketing is not integrated (but payment is), and you end up paying way more in fares than you might have expected.
      - 5y ago
franciscop 5y ago
Oh something I totally missed to explain is that Tokyo is not built like most European/American cities, or even most Japanese cities; it's a city of cities so to speak, so the circle is not around a "life center" (it's somewhat around the imperial family castle, but there's no normal people living there). The circle line stops on the important "cities" that conform Tokyo, which are built in somewhat of a circle itself! The big buildings and everything is on the Yamanote line then. And it's fairly big, not what you'd have as a circle line in most EU cities, it takes a bit over 1h to go around in train. A bit like London, but more extreme.
- quantumwannabe 5y ago
  That is how the newer American cities are laid out as well. Look at a map of Los Angeles or Dallas-Fort Worth or any other sprawling American city and you'll find the exact same layout as Tokyo: many small cities that grew into one giant city, with many of them having their own "downtowns"/"CBDs".