exploring the vast Tokyo subway system

Over the course of many decades, cities have continuously grown, mostly physically, but also in terms of population. Throughout the multiple decades of such continuous growth, there has been an aspect of city life that has mostly remained the same, however: public transport, particularly “below ground”, in subway and other train tunnels. Two of the main examples of cities “leveraging” subway/other forms of trains for their benefits, and for the benefits of their citizens, have been cities that might very well look similar to most people: New York City (mostly in the “borough” of Manhattan), and Tokyo, Japan, which, like most of the rest of the country, grew from nothing after World War II to become its current, almost “post-modern” self. The transit system in New York City might have started first, as “Interborough Rapid Transit” in 1903, and “Brooklyn (another “borough” in the city) Rapid Transit” in 1908, changing its name to “Brooklyn-Manhattan (the “’main’ borough” in the city) Transit” in 1923, all before what is now the Ginza Line of the Tokyo Metro started, as the “Tokyo Underground Railway” (Tōkyō Chika Tetsudō) in 1927, and, arguably, the MTA system, as it’s now known, might have experienced lower “lows” than the Tokyo Metro, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, but, even so, it does seem as if Tokyo, and its “Metro”, took advantage of the struggles, at one point or another, of various U.S. transit systems, in order to become, arguably, the most modern “subway” system on the planet today, and has continued to outpace the MTA, even as the MTA has slowly, but surely, inched closer to other national/international transit systems, that already have more “convenient” services for their passengers, and that the MTA has been studying more and more over the decades.

            What critics of Japan’s massive post-World War II economic progress tend to forget is: the country basically grew from almost nothing back around 1945, to become “itself” these past few years. As such, it would basically require an ultra-modern transit system running to all parts, especially Tokyo, its largest city. A 2012 study between the Brookings Institute, a U.S.-based political “think tank” and the financial firm J.P. Morgan Chase, in fact, found that Tokyo had the fifth-highest number of air passengers worldwide that year, and air passengers usually need another form of transport to get to their eventual destination within Tokyo/some other nearby “suburb”, so where else would they go but a train to do so? The Brookings/JPMC study goes on to state on page 2 (of only 3): “The most recent phase in Tokyo’s global engagement reflects a self-belief about its role as a leading world city. In 1995 a new metropolitan regime ousted the World City policy doctrine and replaced it with a “resident-friendly” focus. New planning policies placed greater emphasis on local amenities and city image while also supporting the efficiencies of agglomeration within localized hubs. A big push to cultivate local SMEs was also made, with moderate success. The attraction of international business traffic and tourism has become a priority as city leaders became more self-consciously competitive. In 2011 the metropolitan government launched a Special Zone for Asian Headquarters to attract foreign companies with preferential tax treatment and generous packages of fiscal and financial support. This move reflects a reversal of the historic efforts to decentralize the capital, and instead endorses the capacity of an expanded central business district to fulfil diversified global roles.” (Brookings/JPMC; multiple authors/reviewers; 2012, 2)

            In his 1989 work Neighborhood Tokyo, Theodore Bestor, a sociology professor at Stanford University, described the growth of various Tokyo “wards” throughout the post-WWII 20^th century, from more “rural” areas, to “suburban”, and, in some cases, to “urban” areas, all between about 1945 and (almost) 1990. According to his many interviews with everyday Japanese (specifically “Tokyoites”), describing the various “wards” in the Japanese capital would be similar to what “New Yorkers might have in mind when referring to Wall Street, Williamsburg (Brooklyn), and the West Village (Manhattan); or San Franciscans when talking of the Tenderloin (which, incidentally, was the name given to an even larger “red light district” in Manhattan circa 1880 – 1910), Nob Hill, and North Beach” (Bestor/Stanford University Press, 1989, pg. 1), although most of the people in those cities would most likely consider each “ward” in Tokyo to be part of the city as a whole, instead of all being individual, as the Japanese government, and most Japanese citizens, have generally considered the “wards” to be. While he acknowledges (N.T. pg. 4) that his visits to various said “wards” does not represent the entirety of neither Tokyo nor Japan, he took his various years’ worth of residence in Tokyo as a sort of “guide” to his “fieldwork”, something that not everybody, regardless of whether or not they have lived in a certain city/country, would probably be able and/or willing to do to document “daily life” there. Back then, Bestor notes 70 rail/subway stations throughout Tokyo, then part of the “Japan National Railways” banner, being government-owned-and-operated, although, since 1990, many different worldwide diplomatic/political events, and equally large sporting events, such as the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, and the 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted with South Korea, practically required the construction and opening of many more rail stations, to handle the tourists on hand for the events. As such, what was probably already seen as a “major” problem by residents, overcrowding, only grew in stature, despite the increased amount of subway stations, and increased amounts of departure/destination locations, and increased service, in an era where most worldwide transit operators have been cutting back on such due to financial difficulties.

As the city inevitably grew from “nothing” after WWII, obviously, more modern technologies would be needed to keep the transit system, by then renamed the “Teito Rapid Transit Authority” (“Teito Kōsokudo Kōtsū Eidan”), going 100%. Enter “BACnet”, a “state-of-the-art” (in 1970), a central control/security system controlling all of the technology in the then-new Tokyo World Trade Center Building. The current system as of 2004 contains the following features: “A fifth-generation central supervisory and control system was installed to keep the facilities in the building in good working order, to receive financial support from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (a research and development organization funded by the Japanese government) for a building energy management system (BEMS), and to reduce energy consumption. The new system included several general purpose high-performance workstations connected to a TCP/IP network and an autonomous decentralized open building supervisory and control system using the BACnet protocol.” (American Society of Heating, Radiation, and Air Conditioning Engineers, Inc.; Toyoda, Takeji; November 2006; page B33/4) Just how does that pertain to trains, one might ask? “Equipment start and stop operations commanded by a B-OWS (building “operations workstation”) are done and confirmed as follows. The operation is initiated by changing the value of the Present Value property of a Binary Output object in a B-BC (building “controller”), and the B-OWS receives the confirmation that the operation occurred by means of a change-of-value message or an event notification message from the B-BC. If the value of the Present Value property is changed but this change is not reflected in the value of the feedback property of the same object within the permitted time period, the B-BC will notify the B-OWS of the command failure by means of the confirmed or unconfirmed event notification message.” (ASHRAE, Inc.; Toyoda; 11/2006; B36) The key phrase in there, obviously, being “start and stop operations”, since trains everywhere are held by such mechanisms, in case of natural disasters, as, in Japan’s case, earthquakes, or, in N.Y.C.’s case, blizzards (in the winter), or heat wave-related track fires, at all times of year, or, in a universal case, people thinking the trains aren’t moving at dozens of miles/kilometers per hour jumping down from the platforms, onto the tracks, risking their lives the whole time, in order to “test the system”.

Part of the new “international reach” provided by the Tokyo/other Japanese systems is, indeed, its commitment to multilingualism in as many of its stations as possible, in as many languages as possible, whereas the MTA system barely makes an effort even in Spanish, widely considered the “second language” throughout most of the “Big Apple”, with over one-third of the City’s population being of Hispanic/Latino origin just around the “turn of the new millennium”, according to page 7 of a 2004 report commissioned by N.Y. City Hall. In fact, the Tokyo Metro, at the very least, offers signage, definitely, in four languages: Japanese kanji first, then hiragana, before English, (simplified) Chinese, and han’gul Korean, in that order. In such areas where stations are generally smaller, and thus less crowded, however, only the signage will be multilingual, and, even then, only bilingual, between Japanese and English, and, sometimes, announcements will be only in Japanese, although such a phenomenon also occurs on the occasional Tokyo Metro train, particularly around midnight, when most of the “crowd” will be either “late shift” workers, leaving sporting events, or other social “gatherings”, and, as such, fewer people in general will be on the trains, let alone foreigners/tourists being on the later trains. In addition to the bilingual announcements/multilingual signage around its stations, the Tokyo Metro, and all of its “connections”, including some of the “shinkansen” stations, have bilingual ticket vending machines, which can be switched from Japanese to English, and vice versa, with the exception of some train ticket/etc. purchases, and the stations themselves have a unique color/(single) letter/(double, as in “0x”) number system, such that people who are “monolingual” in any language, with the exception, perhaps, of languages with different/unique alphabets, can all navigate the stations with the utmost ease. Where the Tokyo Metro falls short of the MTA, however, is in having actual humans, as, on the Tokyo Metro, they are mostly either “maintenance” people, or “security” people; in the MTA subways, the lack of multilingualism/disabled services is more than made up for by the abundance of police officers from the NYPD/MTA itself/etc. Even on board the trains themselves, “live” announcers count off each individual stop along the various trains, and even occasionally announce holidays and other “special occasions”, as well as just general humor that most might consider to be too  “carefree” on public transport. Also around the “holiday season” (Christmas) since 2003, the MTA has brought out its special fleet of “’Holiday’/’Nostalgia’ Trains”, “dressed” completely in holiday décor from various eras of the system’s history, from the 1930s through to the 1970s.

Throughout fairly recent history, both the Tokyo Metro, and various other rail systems throughout city (Tokyo) and country (Japan) alike, as well as MTA New York City Transit, have put the vast majority of their efforts toward improving neighborhoods throughout both cities/”metro areas”. The MTA got its start first, with about 20 years’ “head start” on the Tokyo Metro, at least, but, since the late 1920s, when the “Tokyo Underground Railway” started, and especially since the privatization of  “Japan Railways” into “Central/East/West” in 1987, has far outpaced its N.Y.C. counterpart in terms of technology, not including the 1970s and ‘80s, when MTA equipment experienced almost daily break downs, and when massive crime sprees kept passengers from riding the trains that did (more or less) work to a somewhat normal extent, by those decades’ standards. On the “service” front, however, the systems are somewhat more even than in terms of technology, although, again, it’s “advantage: Tokyo Metro, et. al.”, due to the stations making Japanese/English announcements, and having displays in Japanese, English, (simplified) Chinese, and Korean, in that order, whereas the MTA relies more on its “people” to make announcements, along with keeping 20^th-century-era “booths” in its stations to serve as many passengers as possible, on a daily, “24/7” basis.

REFERENCES/WORKS CITED:

Bestor, Theodore C. Neighborhood Tokyo. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford UP, 1989. 1+. Print.

Kawanago, Shinichi, and Andrew Stevens. "The 10 Traits of Globally Fluent Metro Areas: Tokyo" Rep. N.P.: Brookings Institute/J.P. Morgan Chase, 2013. Web. 10 July 2015. <http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Multimedia/Interactives/2013/tentraits/Tokyo.pdf>.

"The Newest New Yorkers 2000" Rep. N.Y.C.: Department of City Planning, 2004. Web. 10 July 2015. <http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/census/newest_new_yorkers_2000.pdf>.

Toyoda, Takeji. "BACnet in Tokyo" Rep. N.P.: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, 2006. Web. 10 July 2015. <http://www.bacnet.org/Bibliography/BACnet-Today-06/28890-Toyoda.pdf>.