Trains in the Tokyo area averaged 143 per cent of capacity across their main sections in the 2025 financial year, up from 139 per cent the year before, on figures the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism published on 28 July 2026. The Osaka area came in at 117 per cent and the Nagoya area at 126 per cent, the same figure it recorded the previous year.
Those three numbers are the only official answer to the question of when a train in Japan is crowded, and they are narrower than they look. They describe one hour of one or two days in autumn, averaged across a set of main sections, and they say nothing about any individual train.
The Tokyo area averaged 143 per cent in 2025, up from 139
The ministry’s release gives the 2025 figure for the Tokyo area as 143 per cent and prints the previous year’s 139 per cent in brackets beside it. It also prints the movement itself: the text above that table reads four points of increase for the Tokyo area, one point for the Osaka area and no change for the Nagoya area, so the four-point rise is the ministry’s figure rather than my subtraction.
The release before it did the same: the 2024 release gave the Tokyo area at 139 per cent against 136 per cent and labelled that a three-point increase. Two consecutive releases therefore show the same direction in the Tokyo area, from 136 to 139 to 143.
Osaka ran at 117 per cent and Nagoya did not move
The 2025 figures for the other two areas are 117 per cent for the Osaka area, against 116 per cent the year before, and 126 per cent for the Nagoya area, against 126 per cent. Nagoya is the one of the three that is unchanged between the two releases, and the Osaka movement is a single point.
In the 2024 release the same three areas were 139, 116 and 126 per cent, with increases of three points, one point and three points respectively. Reading the two releases together, the Nagoya area rose three points and then held, while the Tokyo area rose in both years.
| Metropolitan area | 2024 financial year | 2025 financial year |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo area | 139 per cent | 143 per cent |
| Osaka area | 116 per cent | 117 per cent |
| Nagoya area | 126 per cent | 126 per cent |
What the percentage counts is one hour, on one or two days in autumn
The ministry defines the congestion rate as the average for the single hour it treats as the most congested, and says the 2025 figures are calculated mainly from passenger data for one or more days in October and November 2025. The 2024 figures rest on the same kind of count taken in October and November 2024.
Three consequences follow, and they matter more than the headline number. The figure is an average over a whole hour, so the fullest train inside that hour is heavier than 143 per cent and the lightest is lighter. It is also an average across main sections rather than a single line, so no particular line carries the published figure. And it is a count from one or two autumn days, so it is a sample rather than a year of observation.
The release also makes clear whose count it is: the survey is run by the ministry’s Railway Bureau with the cooperation of the railway operators, which is to say the operators supply the passenger data and the ministry publishes the result. Neither release states how many sections were surveyed, and both list the rates for individual most-congested sections as a separate attachment rather than reproducing them: the 2025 release names three attachments, the third of which covers the most-congested sections on individual urban lines.
The ministry counts 218 railway operators, and names four groups covering 208
There is no single railway company in Japan. The ministry’s transport white paper puts the number of operators nationwide at 218, and divides them into four groups when it compares passenger volumes: 16 major private railways, the 6 JR companies, 175 regional transport operators, and 11 publicly run operators, which it describes as running subways and streetcars in urban areas.
Adding those four counts myself gives 208, which is 10 short of the 218 the same passage prints. The page does not say what the remaining ten operators are, and it attaches no date to the count itself: the figure appears inside a paragraph about passenger volume for the 2022 financial year, which is the context rather than a stated as-of date.
The passenger figures in that paragraph are national and they are for the 2022 financial year: about 21 billion journeys on a per-person basis, around 17 per cent below the 2019 financial year, and about 352.8 billion passenger-kilometres, around 19 per cent below it. The white paper also notes that on the per-person basis the major private railways and JR each account for roughly 40 per cent of the total.
One operator alone runs 1,970.8 kilometres and 405 stations
The word train in Japan does not refer to one network. Central Japan Railway, which runs the line between Tokyo and Osaka, reports 1,970.8 operating kilometres, 405 stations and 18,404 employees as of the end of March 2025.
Its own split of that route length is 552.6 kilometres of Tokaido Shinkansen and 1,418.2 kilometres of conventional lines. Adding those two myself gives 1,970.8 kilometres, which matches the total the company prints, so the two figures account for the whole of its network and there is no third category in them.
The same page measures how much of that network is built up. It reports 4,698 items of rolling stock, 55.1 per cent of the route double- or multi-tracked, which it gives as 1,086.8 kilometres, and 76.7 per cent electrified, or 1,511.0 kilometres. Centralised traffic control covers 97.5 per cent, 1,922.3 kilometres, and automatic signalling 97.8 per cent, 1,927.3 kilometres. The conventional side is described as 12 lines centred on the Nagoya and Shizuoka City areas. Dividing 1,086.8 by 1,970.8 myself returns 55.1 per cent, so the percentages and the kilometre figures on that page describe the same network rather than two different ones.
That is one company. A ticket or a pass is sold against a particular company’s network, which is why the question of which operator runs a given line is a practical one rather than a technical one: the Shinkansen to Tokyo leaves from Shin-Osaka rather than Osaka Station, and the two stations belong to different parts of the system.
The Tokaido Shinkansen runs 383 trains a day at 285 kilometres per hour
The same company publishes a three-point comparison for its Shinkansen line, taking the 1987 financial year, the 2019 financial year and the 2024 financial year. In 2024 it operated 383 services a day, at a maximum speed of 285 kilometres per hour, carrying 460,000 passengers a day.
In 1987 the figures were 231 services a day, a maximum speed of 220 kilometres per hour, and 279,000 passengers a day. The company prints the speed change itself as 65 kilometres per hour. The other two movements are mine: 152 more services a day, and 181,000 more passengers a day.
One row in that comparison moves differently from the others. The company counts railway operation accidents at 60 cases a year in the 1987 financial year, 17 in 2019 and 32 in 2024, and labels the change across the whole span as a significant decrease rather than printing a figure for it.
| Tokaido Shinkansen | 1987 financial year | 2019 financial year | 2024 financial year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Services a day | 231 | 378 | 383 |
| Maximum speed | 220 km/h | 285 km/h | 285 km/h |
| Passengers a day | 279,000 | 458,000 | 460,000 |
One of those three figures is unchanged since 2019, and two barely moved
Set the 2019 column beside the 2024 one and the pattern changes. The maximum speed is identical at 285 kilometres per hour. The services a day went from 378 to 383, a difference of five by my subtraction. The passengers a day went from 458,000 to 460,000, a difference of 2,000 on figures the company reports in units of ten thousand, so both of those movements sit close to the rounding of the source.
The company’s own framing of the longer span is a multiple: it marks both the service count and the passenger volume as 1.6 times their 1987 level. The speed, meanwhile, reached its present figure before 2019 and has not changed since. For a traveller the reading is that the timetable on this line is dense rather than getting faster, and the reserved-seat system is the part of it that keeps changing: the two online booking services charge differently, one of them annually.
The figures that answer a crowding question, and the ones that do not
A congestion rate of 143 per cent is a statement about main sections in an area during one hour, produced from an autumn count. It is not a statement about a named line, a named station or a particular departure, and the ministry does not publish it as one.
Station-level volume is counted separately, by the operators, and on a different basis again: one company’s ranking of its own stations counts only its own trains, so a station served by several operators appears smaller in it than the number of people passing through the building. Between the ministry’s area averages and each operator’s own counts, there is no single published number for how full a specific train will be.
Sources Checked
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism — press release on congestion rates in the three metropolitan areas, 2025 financial year
Confirmed that the release is dated 28 July 2026 and covers the 2025 financial year; that the average congestion rates for main sections are 143 per cent for the Tokyo area against 139 per cent the previous year, 117 per cent for the Osaka area against 116 per cent, and 126 per cent for the Nagoya area against 126 per cent; that the congestion rate is defined as the average for the most congested one-hour period; that the figures are calculated mainly from passenger data for one or more days in October and November 2025; that the survey is conducted by the Railway Bureau with the cooperation of railway operators; that the release prints the year-on-year movement as a four-point increase for the Tokyo area, a one-point increase for the Osaka area and no change for the Nagoya area, and separately gives 143 per cent with 139 per cent in brackets; and that it does not state the number of sections surveyed but names three attachments, the third covering the most-congested sections on individual urban lines.
https://www.mlit.go.jp/report/press/tetsudo04_hh_000139.html
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism — press release on congestion rates in the three metropolitan areas, 2024 financial year
Confirmed that the release is dated 29 July 2025; that the Tokyo area recorded 139 per cent against 136 per cent, described as a three-point increase, the Osaka area 116 per cent against 115 per cent, a one-point increase, and the Nagoya area 126 per cent against 123 per cent, a three-point increase; that the figures rest mainly on passenger data from October and November 2024; and that rates for individual most-congested sections are held in a separate attachment rather than in the release.
https://www.mlit.go.jp/report/press/tetsudo04_hh_000138.html
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism — transport white paper, railway section
Confirmed that it prints 218 railway operators nationwide; that it names 16 major private railways, 6 JR companies, 175 regional transport operators and 11 publicly run operators running subways and streetcars in urban areas; that it attaches no date to the operator count itself, which sits in a paragraph on 2022 financial year passenger volume; that the major private railways and JR each account for roughly 40 per cent on a per-person basis; and that national volumes for the 2022 financial year are about 21 billion journeys, around 17 per cent below the 2019 financial year, and about 352.8 billion passenger-kilometres, around 19 per cent below it.
https://www.mlit.go.jp/hakusyo/mlit/r06/hakusho/r07/html/n2531000.html
Central Japan Railway Company — annual report 2025, company data page
Confirmed 1,970.8 operating kilometres, 405 stations and 18,404 employees as of the end of March 2025; the split of 552.6 kilometres of Tokaido Shinkansen and 1,418.2 kilometres of conventional lines; 4,698 items of rolling stock; double- and multi-tracked sections at 55.1 per cent and 1,086.8 kilometres, electrified sections at 76.7 per cent and 1,511.0 kilometres, CTC adoption at 97.5 per cent and 1,922.3 kilometres and automatic signalling at 97.8 per cent and 1,927.3 kilometres; and a network of 12 conventional lines centred on the Nagoya and Shizuoka City areas.
https://global.jr-central.co.jp/en/company/ir/annualreport/_pdf/annualreport2025-23.pdf
Central Japan Railway Company — annual report 2025, Tokaido Shinkansen data page
Confirmed the comparison of 231 services a day, 220 kilometres per hour maximum speed and 279,000 passengers a day in the 1987 financial year, 378 services, 285 kilometres per hour and 458,000 passengers in the 2019 financial year, and 383 services, 285 kilometres per hour and 460,000 passengers in the 2024 financial year, with the speed increase printed as 65 kilometres per hour, both the service count and passenger volume marked as 1.6 times the 1987 level, and railway operation accidents given as 60 cases a year in 1987, 17 in 2019 and 32 in 2024 with the change labelled a significant decrease rather than a figure.
https://global.jr-central.co.jp/en/company/ir/annualreport/_pdf/annualreport2025-03.pdf
Last updated: October 2026
