6 ms·

It's real-time in the sense that it's based on the published schedules of the train lines, but it's not "real" real-time because it is not based on the actual l

by kkihara 14y ago

It's real-time in the sense that it's based on the published schedules of the train lines, but it's not "real" real-time because it is not based on the actual locations of the trains. It's not useful at all, but it's a cute visualization and because trains in Japan run very nearly on schedule during normal operating hours, it will be mostly accurate the vast majority of the time. edit : In the "About this site" link on the upper right, it explains that : ① The site uses the scheduled operating information and displays the location the trains are running on the map at the current time. ② The contents, URL, etc., can change at any time or can be made no longer publicly available. ③ & ④ The site adminstrator takes no responsibility, etc. You are responsible for your own actions. In the other information section, the author specifies that it's for Japan only and that the icons used are representative for those lines.

kineticflow 14y ago
>but it's not "real" real-time because it is not based on the actual locations of the trains. It's "real-time" enough in Japan because trains in Japan are almost always on time.
- rurounijones 14y ago
  Baaahahahahahahahahhahahahaaaaaa Train was 8 minutes late this morning and 3 lines were stopped. Probably due to the Typhoon yesterday causing scheduling problems but even on normal days Japanese trains are not the paragons of time-keeping the west seem to make them out to be (Although they ARE miles better than anything I have seen in the UK for instance.) [EDIT] Note: Previous poster downgraded the conviction of his statement after this comment was posted.
  - fruwd 14y ago
    What is considered late there? If a train arrives within 6 minutes of schedule and departs within 11 it's considered 'on time' in my part of Australia.
    - alinajaf 14y ago
      When there isn't a typhoon on, they pretty much arrive on time to the second. Anything later than a few minutes results in the platform staff handing out notes to that effect so that employees can prove to their companies that the train was actually late.
    - rurounijones 14y ago
      Sorry, previous commenter said something along the lines of "Trains always on time to the second" which prompted my response. I don't know the exact numbers they use for their statistics (I think it used to be 1 minute). If a train is delayed by 10 minutes you can ask for a ticket to take to work to show your boss that being late was not your fault. Don't get me wrong, the punctuality is much better than most European countries I have lived in and quite a lot of the time the are perfectly on time, but the west has raised the Japanese public transport system to near mythical status.
      - moe 14y ago
        In germany we're glad when the train arrives within the hour that it was scheduled for...
        arrrg 14y ago
        Not true. http://www.bahn.de/p/view/buchung/auskunft/puenktlichkeit_personenverkehr.shtml http://www.bahn.de/p/view/buchung/auskunft/puenktlichkeit_pe... In August 2012, 99.1% of all stops happened within fifteen minutes of the scheduled time, 94.2% happened within five minutes. Looking only at long-distance trains, 75.8% of all stops where reached within five minutes of the scheduled time and 90.5% of all stops were reached within fifteen minutes of the scheduled time.
        BostX 14y ago
        Not true. Today morning "We appologize bla bla", last Saturday evening "We appologize bla bla aprox. delay 60 min". In the end it was about 120 min. In Germany trains do have delays a way TOO OFTEN.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    Nothing is perfect, not even Japanese trains, but in my experience, the grandparent poster is closer to the truth than you are: Japanese trains are paragons of time-keeping ("paragon: a model or pattern of excellence or of a particular excellence"). Obviously right after a typhoon is a bad time to measure anything, but in normal operation, Japanese trains are extremely punctual, to a degree that's downright astonishing to anyone used to trains in most other countries. Arriving more than a minute late is unusual (less than that is hard to judge because the timetables don't include seconds). The only real exceptions are situations where it's almost impossible to do better—cleaning up after a suicide (and here they're still many times faster than in the U.S., for instance), or operating in inclement weather so severe that attempting normal operation would be dangerous. These exceptions do happen often enough that anybody who lives in Japan will be inconvenienced occasionally (with suicides being the main offender), but 99% of the time, you can set your watch by train arrivals. More to the point, there seems little they could do to make punctuality much better, unless they can figure out how to cheer up the population to the point of discouraging suicides (and of course they are actually working on this issue by moving to platform doors on some lines, not to mention more wacky methods like the blue lights underneath the ends of platforms). If something is so good that there's little practical room for any improvement, doesn't that make it a pretty good candidate for being called "a paragon"?
    - mtrimpe 14y ago
      Slightly off topic, but when my brother was young he became obsessed with preventing train suicides and we actually came to the conclusion that placing an airbag on the front of the train would most likely (help to) resolve this issue. Based on our calculations it should be feasible to prevent death in at least a few percent of cases. Given that the biggest draw for train suicides is its near 100% success rate that would probably quickly reduce train suicides by a very significant factor.
      - eurleif 14y ago
        You might end up with idiots jumping in front of trains because 'it's safe now'.
  - rkwz 14y ago
    I take it that you've never been to India.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  I agree they are definitely more on time than in other countries (in France the timings are a joke!) but they are still getting late quite often. Several times in a week at least. It's not so much of a problem because there is a high frequency of trains anyway.
  - dvhh 14y ago
    I though those timetables where more like guidelines !
nourishingvoid 14y ago
This is a fun visualization, but as you mentioned it's inaccurate precisely when you need it most (when there's a delay). Actually, some JR stations in Osaka already have an indicator that shows when incoming trains are stopped at the previous station or whether they are in between stations.

by kkihara 14y ago

kineticflow 14y ago

>but it's not "real" real-time because it is not based on the actual locations of the trains. It's "real-time" enough in Japan because trains in Japan are almost always on time.

rurounijones 14y ago
Baaahahahahahahahahhahahahaaaaaa Train was 8 minutes late this morning and 3 lines were stopped. Probably due to the Typhoon yesterday causing scheduling problems but even on normal days Japanese trains are not the paragons of time-keeping the west seem to make them out to be (Although they ARE miles better than anything I have seen in the UK for instance.) [EDIT] Note: Previous poster downgraded the conviction of his statement after this comment was posted.
- fruwd 14y ago
  What is considered late there? If a train arrives within 6 minutes of schedule and departs within 11 it's considered 'on time' in my part of Australia.
  - alinajaf 14y ago
    When there isn't a typhoon on, they pretty much arrive on time to the second. Anything later than a few minutes results in the platform staff handing out notes to that effect so that employees can prove to their companies that the train was actually late.
  - rurounijones 14y ago
    Sorry, previous commenter said something along the lines of "Trains always on time to the second" which prompted my response. I don't know the exact numbers they use for their statistics (I think it used to be 1 minute). If a train is delayed by 10 minutes you can ask for a ticket to take to work to show your boss that being late was not your fault. Don't get me wrong, the punctuality is much better than most European countries I have lived in and quite a lot of the time the are perfectly on time, but the west has raised the Japanese public transport system to near mythical status.
    - moe 14y ago
      In germany we're glad when the train arrives within the hour that it was scheduled for...
      - arrrg 14y ago
        Not true. http://www.bahn.de/p/view/buchung/auskunft/puenktlichkeit_personenverkehr.shtml http://www.bahn.de/p/view/buchung/auskunft/puenktlichkeit_pe... In August 2012, 99.1% of all stops happened within fifteen minutes of the scheduled time, 94.2% happened within five minutes. Looking only at long-distance trains, 75.8% of all stops where reached within five minutes of the scheduled time and 90.5% of all stops were reached within fifteen minutes of the scheduled time.
        BostX 14y ago
        Not true. Today morning "We appologize bla bla", last Saturday evening "We appologize bla bla aprox. delay 60 min". In the end it was about 120 min. In Germany trains do have delays a way TOO OFTEN.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  Nothing is perfect, not even Japanese trains, but in my experience, the grandparent poster is closer to the truth than you are: Japanese trains are paragons of time-keeping ("paragon: a model or pattern of excellence or of a particular excellence"). Obviously right after a typhoon is a bad time to measure anything, but in normal operation, Japanese trains are extremely punctual, to a degree that's downright astonishing to anyone used to trains in most other countries. Arriving more than a minute late is unusual (less than that is hard to judge because the timetables don't include seconds). The only real exceptions are situations where it's almost impossible to do better—cleaning up after a suicide (and here they're still many times faster than in the U.S., for instance), or operating in inclement weather so severe that attempting normal operation would be dangerous. These exceptions do happen often enough that anybody who lives in Japan will be inconvenienced occasionally (with suicides being the main offender), but 99% of the time, you can set your watch by train arrivals. More to the point, there seems little they could do to make punctuality much better, unless they can figure out how to cheer up the population to the point of discouraging suicides (and of course they are actually working on this issue by moving to platform doors on some lines, not to mention more wacky methods like the blue lights underneath the ends of platforms). If something is so good that there's little practical room for any improvement, doesn't that make it a pretty good candidate for being called "a paragon"?
  - mtrimpe 14y ago
    Slightly off topic, but when my brother was young he became obsessed with preventing train suicides and we actually came to the conclusion that placing an airbag on the front of the train would most likely (help to) resolve this issue. Based on our calculations it should be feasible to prevent death in at least a few percent of cases. Given that the biggest draw for train suicides is its near 100% success rate that would probably quickly reduce train suicides by a very significant factor.
    - eurleif 14y ago
      You might end up with idiots jumping in front of trains because 'it's safe now'.
- rkwz 14y ago
  I take it that you've never been to India.
ekianjo 14y ago
I agree they are definitely more on time than in other countries (in France the timings are a joke!) but they are still getting late quite often. Several times in a week at least. It's not so much of a problem because there is a high frequency of trains anyway.
- dvhh 14y ago
  I though those timetables where more like guidelines !

nourishingvoid 14y ago

This is a fun visualization, but as you mentioned it's inaccurate precisely when you need it most (when there's a delay). Actually, some JR stations in Osaka already have an indicator that shows when incoming trains are stopped at the previous station or whether they are in between stations.