Tokyo
Nothing can prepare the good people from Tokyo Metro – who are coming to London to run the Elizabeth Line – from the culture shock they will undoubtedly suffer here. Japan, as we all know, is a very different place and the way they operate their transport system is very different to how business is conducted here. To make it even harder for those plucky Japanese managers to adapt, the key difference is one that can only be felt rather than seen – the utter divergence in the business ethos of the two nations. Nowhere is that better expressed than in their respective railway networks.
For a start, Tokyo Metro is not, unlike Transport for London, responsible for all the underground lines in the Japanese capital. Far from it. There are two different underground companies, with names that rather recall the old joke in Life of Brian about the two different Judean liberation organisations.
There is no cheating on the Tokyo network. There is no barrier hopping or bursting through half-open doors that one sees occasionally on the Tube
Tokyo Metro runs nine lines while the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, known as Toei, operates four. Both are state owned though with different structures. Toei is owned by the local Tokyo government in a joint venture with central government, while Tokyo Metro is wholly owned by the national government. Just to add to the complexity, there are also half a dozen companies which run services in and around Tokyo, and these are genuine private organisations though the state is the regulator, granting licences and setting maximum fares but with a very light touch.
The economics of the Tokyo transport system is Byzantine but astonishingly, despite the plethora of organisations, both public and private, does not require the intervention of countless lawyers and intrusive regulators to function. Here’s an astonishing example. There is a suburban service that starts some 20 miles outside central Tokyo. When its trains reach Shinjuku, on the fringe of the central area, the driver is replaced. Having started out as a privately operated service, the train then becomes a fully-fledged part of the Tokyo Metro. Then, as if to emphasise that anything is possible, at the eastern edge of the central district, the situation is reversed and a third driver, operating for yet another company takes over. When I quizzed a director of one of the private companies about the financial arrangements, he stressed that these were very long established and had been adapted to new situations, but without the need for lawyers and complex contracts. In other words, it was all done on the nod through gentlemen’s agreements and custom and practice.
Moreover, all the Japanese rail managers I spoke to have emphasised that when things go wrong, there are no recriminations between companies. They just fix it and move on. In the UK the various private operators employ hundreds – possibly thousands – of ‘delay attribution clerks’ who decide who is responsible for delays caused, for example, by a broken-down train which then affects other companies’ trains. There are even remarkably complex schedules in the operators’ contracts to deal with every eventuality. Not so in Japan. The managers just laughed when I mentioned lawyers and formulae to sort out financial arrangements.
On the face of it, the operation of the Elizabeth Line is simpler than the Japanese system because it is controlled over its 100 km length by Transport for London. But when things go wrong, it is down to Network Rail; Great Western or Greater Anglia, the two operators running trains on the outer sections of the line; or even some hapless freight train which might have broken down. This gives lucrative employment to the clerks, the lawyers and the managers, but is of little help to the passengers caught up in such mishaps.
The Japanese system does have its downsides. For my daily trips around central Tokyo, I have bought a day ticket from JR (Japanese Railways East) for just £3.80. But when, after getting lost on a jog, I found myself at a Toei station served by a subway (by which they mean the deep tube lines, as opposed to those which run almost on the surface) the machine rejected my ticket. I had to fork out a further 200 yen (£1) to get back to my hotel. There is a hugely complex system of transferring between lines, with a total lack of clarity about when you have to pay extra. Locals sort this out by paying with a card which they charge with money and then just walk through the barriers, which incidentally are open all the time except when someone tries to get through without the appropriate ticket. That means they go wrong far less frequently. And while the ticket machines take cash, there are amazingly efficient at dispensing even very complex amounts of change – 275 yen in one case – with one rapid splurge.
And there is no cheating on the Tokyo network. There is no barrier hopping or bursting through half-open doors that one sees occasionally on the Tube network and all too often in other capital cities such as Paris or Brussels. People move quietly and cooperatively in numbers that make Oxford Circus look like a village station. Every day there are around 20 million journeys on the wider Tokyo rail network, pretty much equivalent to the number of trips in a week in London. Those numbers are boosted by the fact that it is almost impossible to drive into central Tokyo or to own a car if you live there because there is no on street parking. The few spaces are tucked underneath buildings or an on small lots, which means that the rail system enjoys a near monopoly.
Thankfully, and indeed necessarily, it runs remarkably smoothly. Every waking minute is London’s rush hour but without the rush. No one runs for trains, there is always another on the way and every knows that. Holding a door open for a latecomer would be seen as offensive. People wait patiently on the side while passengers get off the trains without being injuncted by constant loudspeaker messages – though they do tell you to stand behind the yellow lines, even on the many stations with barrier doors on the platforms.
No one could argue that travelling on the Tokyo rail system is uplifting. The service is basic and at times seems quite old fashioned. There are no sleek new trains, little architecture of note apart from the odd remnant of a more exuberant pre-war era and nothing to resemble the uncharacteristic opulence of the Elizabth Line. The experience reflects the unique ethos of Japan, a mix of conservative and traditional values based on a Communist-like collective approach to living together. The courtesy and attention to other people’s needs is deeply ingrained and reflected in the design of the network. The people, mostly on their own, walk through with a quiet determination. No one seems to be lost or need help. The only colourful jackets and coats on the underground system are those worn by the occasional gaijin (foreigner) as everyone else wears slight variants of black, beige or brown apart from the brave in white.
The lack of discipline and the frenetic nature of the London crowds will be the biggest culture shock for the Tokyo Metro managers coming to London. The big question will be whether they can change us for the better or whether they will wilt under the pressure of our differences.
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