The 12.5 km quadruple-track section of theKeihan Main Line betweenTenmabashi and the Neyagawa Signal Box is branded entirely as the "Keihan Main Line", and is counted only once in this list.East ofMitaka, rapid and local services on theChūō Main Line in the Greater Tokyo Area are segregated from each other, with each provided a dedicated pair of tracks and distinctive branding (orange for the rapid services and yellow for the local services).
The list of urban rail systems in Japan listsurban rail transit systems in Japan, organized by metropolitan area (都市圏), including number of stations, length (km), and average daily and annual ridership volume. Data is shown only for those areas designated as major metropolitan areas (大都市圏) by theStatistics Bureau of theMinistry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
There are several considerations for the data presented in this list.
TheTenjin Underground Mall connectsTenjin andTenjin-Minami on theFukuoka City Subway. Together, these two stations are considered an interchange station, but because they are given distinct station names, they are counted as separate stations in this list.
Data is broken down at the line level, then rolled up for each specific railway operator. The total station count for each operator is a "unique station" count—aninterchange or transfer station between two lines operated by the same company is counted as a single station. As a result, summing together the station counts for all of the lines under a single railway operator will generally yield a value greater than the total station count cited for the operator.
Some station pairs are officially considered interchanges by their respective railway operators despite having different names (e.g.,Tameike-Sannō andKokkai-gijidō-mae on theTokyo Metro andTenjin andTenjin-Minami on theFukuoka City Subway). As such stations have different names, however, they are counted as separate stations in this list.
In a similar fashion to the station count, length is counted as route kilometers, but only considers "unique" segments. The following considerations are relevant for the lengths referenced in the tables.
Generally, multiple-track sections classified under the same line name and without operational segregation into separate lines are only counted once, not twice. Examples include thequadruple-track sections of theKeihan Main Line andTōbu Isesaki Line, which are only counted once because fast (i.e., limited-stop) and slow (i.e., local or all-stop) services are branded together as a single line, not separately as distinct lines.
Other cases includedouble junctions where a double-trackbranch line ties into a double-trackmain line, permitting interlining of the branch line with the main line. Examples includeKeiō Sagamihara Line trains that continue pastChōfu Station onto theKeiō Line. In this situation, the trackage of the Keiō Sagamihara Line is counted as only the section between Chōfu andHashimoto Station, while the double-track section east of Chōfu is counted under the Keiō Line, following traditional conventions for railway line nomenclature in Japan.
Likewise, double-track segments shared by lines under the same operator are only counted once. Examples include theYamanote Freight Line betweenIkebukuro andŌsaki, a segment shared by theSaikyō Line andShōnan-Shinjuku Line. In this situation, the trackage is counted only once, under the Saikyō Line. Similarly, tabulations for the larger tram systems with a high degree of interlining, such asHiroshima Electric Railway, also consider only unique segments, and sections where multiple routes overlap are only counted once.
However, if there is some reasonable segregation of operations or distinction between lines, the trackage is counted more than once. Examples include the various quadruple-track sections ofEast Japan Railway Company (JR East) that provide segregated local and rapid services (e.g.,Chūō Rapid Line vs.Chūō-Sōbu Line). Here, the route-kilometers are counted twice, once under the Chūō Rapid Line and again under the local Chūō-Sōbu Line.
Other situations include quadruple-track sections at the confluence of two distinct double-track lines, such as theŌsaka Uehommachi –Fuse quadruple-track section of theKintetsu network in centralŌsaka, officially designated as part of theOsaka Line but actually two lines (the Osaka Line andNara Line) sharing a singleright-of-way west of Fuse. A similar situation applies for many JR East lines—theYamanote Line andKeihin-Tōhoku Line officially use tracks classified as part of theTōkaidō Main Line andTōhoku Main Line, but that are fully segregated from the tracks used by the respective services operating under the names "Tōkaidō Line" and "Utsunomiya Line" / "Takasaki Line".
Extensive through-service arrangements in Japan allow trains owned by one railway to operate far out into other parts of the metropolitan area. ThisKeikyu train is arriving atNarita Yukawa Station on theKeisei Narita Airport Line in far eastern Tokyo, bound forHaneda Airport and traditional Keikyu territory in southwestern Tokyo via theHokusō Line,Keisei Oshiage Line, andToei Asakusa Line. This non-Keikyu trackage is not included as part of Keikyu's network length.JR West's "Urban Network" in theOsaka-Kobe-Kyoto area provides an extensive web of fast urban and suburban rail service connecting primary and secondary cities in the metropolitan area.
As a general rule, trackage used by one company but owned by another company as part of atrackage rights orThrough Train (直通運転) (often translated as through-service) agreement is not counted under the first company. For example, trackage on theToei Asakusa Line is not counted underKeikyu Corporation, Keisei Electric Railway, or theHokusō Railway, despite the fact that all three operate their trains on the Asakusa Line. However, this list makes some exceptions to this rule, the most notable being theKeisei-Takasago –Inba-Nihon-Idai section of theKeisei Narita Airport Line, which is shared with trains operated by Hokusō Railway but owned partially by Hokusō Railway (Keisei-Takasago –Komuro) andChiba New Town Railway (Komuro – Inba-Nihon-Idai). This shared trackage is counted once under Hokusō Railway and again under Keisei Electric Railway.
Similar exceptions include trackage owned by third-sector railways that do not own any of their own rolling stock and instead contract out train operations to through-servicing operators. Notable examples include the double-track approach intoNarita Airport, which is owned by the third-sectorNarita Airport Rapid Railway. All trains on this railway, however, are operated by either JR East or Keisei Electric Railway, with each operator getting dedicated usage of one of the two tracks into the Airport. In this situation, the JR East single-track section is counted in the JR total, while the Keisei single-track section is counted in the Keisei total.
Both average daily and annual ridership are included, because only average daily ridership or annual ridership (not both) is available for some operators. In cases where data for only one of the two is available, care has been taken to not extrapolate the passenger volume to obtain the other, as there is a potential margin of error when attempting to derive average daily ridership from annual ridership (which is usually rounded to the nearest thousand passengers) and natural disasters or other unforeseen situations may force some operators to shut down for extended periods of time, as happened with theSendai Subway in the days following the2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
For readability and ease of comparison across metropolitan areas, systems within each metropolitan area are broken down into the following categories:
Subways are divided into two types: publicly operated and privately owned, and are grouped together with each other regardless of ownership. See日本の地下鉄 for more details.
Publicly operated subways (公営地下鉄): Systems generally considered "subways" and operated directly by government agencies at the city (e.g.,Kobe Municipal Subway) or prefecture (e.g.,Toei Subway) level.
Privately owned subways (民営地下鉄): Systems generally considered "subways" that are owned by private operators (e.g.,Tokyo Metro), as well asthird-sector (semi-public) subways (e.g.,Minatomirai Line).
Semi-major private railways (準大手私鉄): Any of the eight private railways considered by theMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and others to be intermediate in size, smaller than the major private railways but larger in scale than the medium and small private railways (中小私鉄). Examples includeKita-Osaka Kyuko Railway andSanyo Electric Railway. Like the major private railways, they provide critical urban rail service in the metropolitan areas.
Japan Rail metropolitan network: Urban rail services operated by Japan Rail Group companies. While JR Group companies administer networks spanning multiple regions and operate various long-distance and intercity services such aslimited expresses andShinkansenhigh-speed rail, services in metropolitan areas are often focused on providing urban and suburban transit. JR East, for example, is the largest single urban rail operator in the world, carrying around 14 million passengers daily on its extensive rail network in Greater Tokyo.[1]
Other major railways: Any other major railways not fitting any of the above four categories. Examples include theTsukuba Express and theEnoshima Electric Railway.
Other minor railways: Any other systems which provide rail service in the metropolitan area but do not fall into the above categories. Examples include tourist-heavy lines like theDisney Resort Line (amonorail line primarily serving theTokyo Disney Resort), local people mover systems such as theYamaman Yūkarigaoka Line (a smallautomated guideway transit system primarily serving to connect anew town development with a major suburban railway station), or other minor systems like theMizuma Railway (a minor private railway in suburban Osaka).
^Operated with buses, but also classified as a railway.
^Defined here as theSuicacoverage area (as of 2012.05.31) in the Niigata area, omitting theJōetsu Shinkansen. The Suica coverage area is identical in scope toJR East's Niigata Suburban Area (新潟近郊区間)
^Annual ridership for Kintetsu includes passengers on lines outside of the Osaka‒Kobe‒Kyoto area, including lines in the Greater Nagoya area.
^Defined as the JR West Osaka Suburban Area ([1]) for fare calculation purposes, omitting Shinkansen sections, all withinJR West's Urban Network (アーバンネットワーク) (as of 31 July 2019).
^Defined here as theTOICAcoverage area (as of 2012.05.30) east ofToyohashi, together with theKannami ‒Atami section of theTōkaidō Main Line and theNishi-Fujinomiya ‒Shibakawa section of theMinobu Line.JR Central has no suburban area (近郊区間) defined for the Shizuoka‒Hamamatsu area for fare calculation purposes, and the TOICA coverage area is limited, with many trains continuing beyond the boundaries of the current coverage area.
^Defined here asJR East's Tokyo Suburban Area (東京近郊区間) for fare calculation purposes, and roughly correlating with theSuicacoverage area (as of 2012.03.17). However, Suica coverage does not extend to theKarasuyama Line,Kashima Line, andKururi Line, which are considered part of the Tokyo Suburban Area.
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