Fascinating. Are the passengers walking to the station and know exactly how long the walk takes? Or is it some closely timed transfer from another source?
Often when different lines meet the tracks are organised such that the trains pull up together on either side of a platform: a so-called cross-platform interchange[1]. The passengers on either train then have 30 seconds or so to board the other train if they wish to change. Obviously this has to be precisely timed - if one train is late or the other departs early, the transfer can't take place.
It really is an amazing system, a wonder of the world. There's one part of the yamanote line that runs parallel to the keihin-touhoku line. In this section, the K-T line acts as an express, whereas the yamanote generally stops all stations. So as the lines meet, you'll have a bunch of people get off the yamanote onto the "express" keihin-touhoko - they arrive synchronously, then the keihin speeds past a few slow poke yamanotes, before arriving in sync again with a yamanote a few trains ahead of the original one, so people can switch back before the keihin diverges and goes off on its route. It's unbelievable, choreographed like a steel ballet. The best train system in the world bar none.
It's not fully automated. The drivers are very disciplined (https://youtu.be/xzkU6tmdImY?t=639) although I don't know to what extent they have automation helping them.
If you get the same train to work every day you start to know exactly how long the walk takes. I can comfortably arrive at my local station (in London) in the right minute.
Well, I live in London close to the end of one of the tube lines, and I try to leave home at 8:58 so that I can be on the platform when the 9:04 train arrives :)
Of course, being London sometimes the times are off and the system probably wouldn't work if the station was not close to the ends (less predictability due to random delays)
The Luas is frequent which makes up for a lot, but the schedule is given as (every X minutes) and often misses that due to sharing with road traffic for large parts of the track.
Still better than bus eireann, where if you're getting on in the last 25% of the route, the timetable is often every hour, +/- 30 minutes, which means there could be a bus at any time and it's not likely to be the scheduled time.
Often it’s tranfering from another platform. If you take the same route regularly you get to know which carriage is best to board on the first train so that when you depart and cross the platform you’ll be on able to board the carriage nearest your exit when it arrives at the final destination.
There are lots of little hacks like this because trains always stop in the same place, and leave at the stated times.
Transfer times are often quite short too, particularly if it’s just walking across the platform.
Oh, yes. Definitely. The trains are extremely reliable in Japan, so people know exactly when they have to leave to catch the train they want. People also use smart phone apps that tell them the train schedules, so they'll often arrive right before the train leaves. Why would you arrive five minutes early and just stand around when you know the train is going to leave at exactly 7:32?
Strange to see this one voted gray--it makes perfect sense that with a very reliable system, people would modify their behavior (and possibly way of thinking, which is also interesting) accordingly.
I used to walk to Baltimore Penn Station for my commute. Without even trying, I'd arrive at the same minute almost every day. (My train, however, would not, because we're a failure as a civilization.)
Places in the world where public transportation works well and isn't a after thought, are indeed fascinating. It's strange how people support and pay for reliable service and do actually get it. A bit of a culture shock the first time I went overseas I was puzzled for a bit on how the train station actually knew all of the times and was confident enough to print them out.
> It's strange how people support and pay for reliable service and do actually get it
People in the U.S. pay for reliable service, we just get a lot less in return. The D.C. Silver Line cost $150 million per km, even though it's almost entirely above-ground and mostly runs through low-density suburbs along highway medians that were specifically reserved for it decades ago when the highways were built. Stockholm, in contrast, built a new line mostly underground through central Stockholm for about $250 million per km.
Most of the stations were only a single line, so no transfers. It seemed that the passengers knew exactly what time they needed to leave to make it to the station on time.
For my wife and her friends: yes, she knows exactly how long it takes her to walk to the station and will leave with only a minute to spare for the train to arrive.
I can't do that, I always worry I'll be delayed somehow haha
Often when different lines meet the tracks are organised such that the trains pull up together on either side of a platform: a so-called cross-platform interchange[1]. The passengers on either train then have 30 seconds or so to board the other train if they wish to change. Obviously this has to be precisely timed - if one train is late or the other departs early, the transfer can't take place.
It really is an amazing system, a wonder of the world. There's one part of the yamanote line that runs parallel to the keihin-touhoku line. In this section, the K-T line acts as an express, whereas the yamanote generally stops all stations. So as the lines meet, you'll have a bunch of people get off the yamanote onto the "express" keihin-touhoko - they arrive synchronously, then the keihin speeds past a few slow poke yamanotes, before arriving in sync again with a yamanote a few trains ahead of the original one, so people can switch back before the keihin diverges and goes off on its route. It's unbelievable, choreographed like a steel ballet. The best train system in the world bar none.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform_interchange#Tok...