COVID-19 and the Crisis of Japan’s Local Train Lines

Justin Aukema

March 2022

(An earlier version of this article was published here at Global Voices)

A single car diesel train engine leaves Kamo Station (Kyoto) for Kameyama Station (Mie) on the Kansai Main Line. The Line is one of seventeen highlighted by JR West as having low ridership and whose future is uncertain. Photo cc Justin Aukema, 24 Feb 2022.

Japan’s local trains are in trouble. Between 2000 and 2021 alone forty-five train lines spanning 1158 kilometers were decommissioned [1]. Many others have cut operating hours, staff, and special ticket discounts across the country [2].

Train companies including those affiliated with Japan Rail (JR) say this is a natural result of rural depopulation, declining birth rate, and increased car transportation [3]. But as scholars have pointed out, rural depopulation and increased car use often aren’t the cause but rather the result of local train lines closing down [4].

Rather, it seems the biggest reason for the shut downs is simply that local lines aren’t as profitable as their larger and more urban counterparts.

The history of JR helps illustrate this. In 1987, Japanese National Railways was privatized and broken up into seven separate entities under the Japan Rail moniker. This was part of a neoliberal scheme pushed by then prime minister, Nakasone Yasuhiro.

Since that time, JR sales and profits increased, and they have continued to do so into the 2000s and 2010s [5].

But apparently this wasn’t enough. From 2010, JR-affiliated companies began asking local governments to cover their deficits and for more taxpayer money. And they threatened to decommission local train lines if their requests weren’t met [6].

Some Prefectures cooperated. But others were less willing to do so. National law stipulates that JR needs to gain municipalities’ “understanding” (rikai) before it decommissions a train line. As a result, local governments, whose shoestring budgets aren’t enough to cover JR’s losses, but who also aren’t interested in losing one of their most important pieces of infrastructure, have simply been reluctant to enter negotiations with JR in the first place [7].

Consequently, JR has adopted other methods including reducing services to a bare minimum. In some places, it has even abandoned school-commuter passes (tsūgaku-ken) for students [8].

Now, COVID-19 has provided JR with a further opportunity to make more cutbacks and to demand more public compensation. JR Central, JR West, and JR East all posted record losses in the first quarter of 2021 as train ridership abruptly and precipitously dropped [9].

In this milieu, JR West has taken a novel response. In February 2022, it began publishing data on “underperforming” and “unprofitable” local train lines under its operation. Any train line or section of a train line with less than 2,000 riders per kilometer on an average day is being targeted for scrutiny. This includes a total of 30 sections on 17 different train lines, and accounts for approximately one-third of JR West’s total operating lines [10].

Among the “problematic” lines highlighted were the Obama Line (from Tsuruga to Higashi Maizuru), the San-in Line (various sections, one of the longest of which extends from Izumo to Masuda), and the Kansai Line (from Kameyama to Kamo).

In a February JR West press release, company president Hasegawa Kazuaki said that the highlighted rail lines are not “living up to their full potential” (鉄道の特性が発揮できておらず) and that it will be difficult to maintain them or keep them running [11].

JR West’s losses reached 116.5 billion yen (around 1 billion USD) due to COVID-19. But the company had already been cutting costs and shuttering smaller local lines well before this. In its thirty-five years of operation, JR West closed sixteen sections of train lines. Most recently, in 2018, it decommissioned the 108-km Sankō Line running between Hiroshima and Tottori Prefectures [12].

Of the train lines now in question, the Mainichi Shimbun quoted Hasegawa as saying “it’s going to be difficult to keep maintaining these lines. We need to start thinking about whether we need them or not” (このままの形で維持するのは難しい。維持が適切か議論する必要がある)[13]. And in the Sankei Shimbun he was quoted as commenting, “I hope we don’t just have to tell local governments that we’re going to shut them [train lines] down” (廃止届を出して終わりにならないよう)[14].

Hasegawa said affected regions could prepare for the worst by switching to more bus or taxi transportation. He also said his company would be more inclined to keep the lines operating if certain provisos were met. One option he posed was to separate infrastructure and operation (jōge bunri hōshiki) by having local governments purchase the train line and hiring JR to run its operation. Another card he put on the table was to receive more financial support and subsidies [15].

None of these options are likely to be very appealing for the affected regions and municipalities. Either they cover JR West’s deficits or face losing a key part of their infrastructure with potentially even more disastrous economic and social effects.

The crisis of Japan’s local train lines reveals that COVID-19 has been not only a public health disaster but also an opportunity for further neoliberal cuts and upward transfers of wealth as large corporations increasingly tap public funds for bailouts.

The situation also contradicts more positive assessments of COVID-19 as an impetus for increased telework or for freeing people from being tied to densely populated urban centers.

Moreover, the events detailed here describe a larger crisis of capitalism in general: the impossibility of matching public need with corporate profits.





Works cited

[1] Kokudō Kōtsūshō. Kin’nen haishi sareta tetsu kidō rosen. 3 February 2022. https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/001344605.pdf (accessed 18 February 2022).

[2] Norimono Nyūzu. “Kansai no JR ‘1 jikan ni ippon’ ka sara ni susumu, shin kaisoku no Kusatsu ihoku Gakken toshi sen, Sakurai sen etc.” 18 December 2021. ​​https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/3e9389794522fcdec3a15704327750c428ee3d57 (accessed 18 February 2022); JR Nishi Nihon. News Release. 31 March 2021. https://www.westjr.co.jp/press/article/items/210331_02_icoca.pdf (accessed 18 February 2022).

[3] JR Nishi Nihon. 2022nen 2gatsu Shachō Kaiken. 16 February 2022. https://www.westjr.co.jp/press/article/items/220216_07_kaiken.pdf (accessed 18 February 2022).

[4] Yamamoto, Yoshitaka. Rinia chūō shinkansen o megutte: genpatsu jiko to korona pandemikku kara minaosu. Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 2021.

[5] Nippon no Sūji. JR Higashi Nihon Saishin Kessai. 29 October 2021. https://www.nippon-num.com/corporation/trans_land/9020.html (accessed 18 February 2022); Nippon no Sūji. JR Nishi Nihon Saishin Kessai. 31 August 2021. https://www.nippon-num.com/corporation/trans_land/9021.html (accessed 18 February 2022); JR Kyūshū. Keiei Seiseki no Sui’i. https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/company/info/data/seiseki.html (accessed 18 February 2022); Kokudō Kōtsūshō. 1996 Unyu Hakusho. Dai’ichi bu, dai san setsu “Keiei jōkyō.” https://www.mlit.go.jp/hakusyo/transport/heisei08/pt1/810303.html (accessed 18 February 2022).

[6] Moriguchi Motoyuki. “JR akaji rosen, ‘sonpai rongi’ wa ima koso hajimeru beki da.” Tōyō Keizai, 29 January 2020. https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/327021 (accessed 18 February 2022).

[7] Moriguchi, “JR akaji rosen.” 29 January 2020.

[8] Moriguchi, “JR akaji rosen.” 29 January 2020.

[9] “‘Tetsudō kinkyū jitai’ korona kukyō de ‘tairyoku shōbu’ ga hajimatta.” Shūkan Ekonomisuto Onrainu. 28 August 2021. https://mainichi.jp/premier/business/articles/20210825/biz/00m/070/001000d (accessed 18 February 2022).

[10] JR Nishi Nihon. 2022nen 2gatsu Shachō Kaiken. 16 February 2022; “JR Nishi Nihon, rōkaru senku goto no shūshi jōkyō kōhyō e, sono nerai wa.” Mainichi Shimbun, 16 February 2022. https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/1bca89d0cf75b205b2dc0d946416972e4d440fdb (accessed 18 February 2022).

[11] JR Nishi Nihon. 2022nen 2gatsu Shachō Kaiken. 16 February 2022; “Rōkaru sen no shūshi kōhyō e, JR Nishi, chīki ni kibishī jōkyō meiji.” Sankei Shimbun, 16 February 2022. https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/fa884a91531d6a88e0cc0e60e3e10e7904b0e8fb (accessed 18 February 2022).

[12] “Rōkaru sen no shūshi kōhyō e, JR Nishi, chīki ni kibishī jōkyō meiji,” 16 February 2022; “JR Nishi Nihon, rōkaru senku goto no shūshi jōkyō kōhyō e, sono nerai wa,” 16 February 2022.

[13] “JR Nishi Nihon, rōkaru senku goto no shūshi jōkyō kōhyō e, sono nerai wa,” 16 February 2022.

[14] “Rōkaru sen no shūshi kōhyō e, JR Nishi, chīki ni kibishī jōkyō meiji,” 16 February 2022.

[15] “Rōkaru sen no shūshi kōhyō e, JR Nishi, chīki ni kibishī jōkyō meiji,” 16 February 2022.