Myth #1. “Japanese trains are always on time.”
The statistics you see on punctual trains are usually in reference to the high-speed bullet train — the Shinkansen. It’s almost always on time. But bullet trains only make up a small fraction of trains in Japan. Tickets are expensive and they’re often very long distance, so incentives to be on time are greater. The rest of the train system in Japan, particularly in Tokyo, has a serious congestion problem.
In fact, Japanese trains are late all the time…The government finally started tracking these numbers and found that trains in Tokyo on the Chuo-Sobu Line were late an average of 19.1 days a month in 2017 — so most days. Half of these trains were late under ten minutes and the other half 10 minutes — 30 minutes or more. Delays were often due to suicides (they have to clean up the body…)
