Currently, the public transport in Japan while fantastic and on time so much so that you can set your watch to it, doesn’t run late at night so it’s often that salarymen will be forced to use a taxi to get home. Problem is the taxi companies know this so they tend to hike up their prices late at night to compensate for this.
This could be changing soon as Governor Naoki Inose from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government went on record saying he intends to extend some of the TOEI bus routes to a 24 hour timetable. One of the routes he particularly mentioned was the Shibuya to Roppongi route as a possible test, to start as soon as Christmas this year. With the subway trains though, he did express that this might be more difficult, but he did say, “We will extend hours of operation to the extent allowable. For buses though, it should be possible.”
Some of the public seem to be for it while others are against the notion of 24/7 public transport. Some people were saying, “I would prefer 24-hour buses to trains, then I will be able to get home from anywhere!” or the other argument was “Taxi drivers will be in tears” to “This will cause inevitable damage to Tokyo’s taxi industry.” Some others were more vocal adding, “Do not do it! It will mean more overtime”.
Seems to be a touchy subject, we’ll let you know of any updates to this.
