What the world can learn from Japan

When you look at photos of Japanese cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka they can look very dense and somewhat unstructured. Bright neon signs adorn buildings and there is a wide variety of architecture. Yet when you visit a Japanese city, or indeed a town, they feel calm, quiet and well organised. Much of this is due to the way their transport & mobility infrastructure is integrated into the way people live. 

To start with, there are relatively few cars on the road. People drive cars, of course (Japan is also home to some of the world’s largest auto manufacturers that export globally). Car ownership in Japan is about 590 vehicles per 1,000 people, which is less than America’s rate (reported to be about 800 per 1,000) and comparable to a lot of European countries. On average, there are 1.06 cars per household. Tokyo is an exception to this average, where there are only 0.32 cars per household. Most car owners live in smaller cities and towns. [1] The highest rate of car ownership is in Fukui Prefecture, on the western coast of Honshu, one of Japan’s least densely populated areas. Car ownership in Japan overall is falling. Part of the reason is the country’s ageing population, and part of it is a factor of where people are choosing to live, with more people opting to live in large urban centres (Tokyo, Osaka and others such as Fukuoka). 

Just like in other parts of the world, large expressways connecting cities can get jammed with cars. During holiday periods for example, large numbers of people drive to the countryside and cause heavy traffic. But most of the time on most residential streets in cities and towns, the volume of traffic is low and sometimes almost non-existent. The few cars you see are usually tiny, quiet little vehicles, many of which are, curiously, not to be found outside of Japan.

Cycling is popular in cities and towns as a way to get around. In Tokyo it apparently accounts for 17 percent of journeys. The Japanese do not seem to shout about their achievements in cycling to others. In cities such as Fukuoka, Kyoto and Nara cycling seems, on anecdotal evidence, even more popular than it is in Tokyo. The vast majority of cyclists in these cities and towns do not wear helmets, which, given that the country is very safety conscious is interesting, but it clearly works. Similar to the approach in some Dutch cities, Japanese cities and towns do not have many segregated cycle lanes. A lot of cycle lanes are shared wide paths / sidewalks with pedestrians. It works just fine. Unlike in European cities where bikes are popular, there isn't the constant noise of bells ringing (not that this is a problem in Europe - it helps maintain pedestrian awareness) - cyclists and pedestrians simply co-exist. The other primary form of active mobility – walking – is very popular too. Perhaps part of the reason for this is that people are served by excellent public transport; they don't have to walk far to access it if and when they need / want to. 

Tokyo has the most-used public transport system in the world: 30 million people are said to use it every day. Given the huge number of people using public transport in Tokyo, it is amazing to think that it rarely (except at rush hour times) feels packed, and it never feels stressful (including at rush hour peak periods). The quality of fittings and furnishing on metropolitan and subway trains are excellent and, like everything else in Japan, the cars / carriages are kept spotlessly clean. No one listens to loud music in them or squawks into a phone on loudspeaker. People are too respectful of their fellow citizens to do that. It is the same on the buses. A common feature of metropolitan train stations is that, for those that live in the suburbs, they are usually linked with bus stations, so if you are taking connections involving both forms of public transport, the connection is seamless. The price of public transport is very reasonable, too. During hot periods, some trains have variable levels of air-conditioning in the cars, which helps to manage air-conditioning responsibly. There is a very orderly queue system for trains at rush hour. Colour coding for different train lines on the platforms to be used at peak hour times if not other times is a common sight. 

[1] Heatmap - How Tokyo Became an Anti-Car Paradise (April 2023)

Japan is known to be a world leader in disaster risk reduction - not only in the infrastructure that exists, but in the way local authorities cooperate with businesses to put good plans in place.

In Japan, many businesses make plans with local authorities to support them when a disaster event occurs, to reduce the impact to people as much as possible. For a tourism business for example, this could mean making rooms in safe and unimpacted properties available to evacuees, offering washing facilities and so on. For a tree clearing business, this could mean pre-arranged rates for clearing trees in the event of them being blown down in a storm. The authorities can maintain lists for where people can go for respite, shelter and washing when a disaster occurs. Emergency agreements exist between local authorities and businesses in a way that businesses are reimbursed for costs afterwards. It is not a profit-making venture for businesses; it is about appreciating that the base costs will be covered.