![JR logo JRgroup](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/JR_logo_JRgroup.svg)
The Japan Railways Group, more commonly known as the or simply JR, consists of seven
for-profit stock companies that took over most of the
asset
In financial accountancy, financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value ...
s and
operations of the government-owned
Japanese National Railways
The abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987.
Network Railways
As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pref ...
(JNR) on April 1, 1987. Most of the
liability of the JNR was assumed by the
JNR Settlement Corporation
The , or JNRSC, was a temporary holding company created to distribute the assets of the former Japanese National Railways (JNR) after its privatization in the mid-1980s. On October 22, 1998, the JNRSC was disbanded and placed under the Japan Railw ...
.
The JR Group lies at the heart of Japan's railway network, operating a large proportion of intercity rail service (including the
Shinkansen
The , colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. Initially, it was built to connect distant Japanese regions with Tokyo, the capital, to aid economic growth and development. Beyond l ...
high-speed rail lines) and commuter rail service.
JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku, and JR Freight (JRF) are governed by the , also known as the ''JR Companies Act'', and are under the control of the public
Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
(JRTT), while JR East, JR Central, JR West, and JR Kyushu have full private ownership. Because the railways used to be owned by the government, Japanese people generally make a distinction between JR railways (including former JR lines that are now
third sector) and other
private railways, and JR railways are almost always denoted differently from other private railways when shown on maps.
Companies
The Japan Railways Group consists of seven operating companies and two other companies that do not provide rail service. The operating companies are organized into six passenger operators and a nationwide freight operator. Unlike some other groups of companies, the JR Group is made up of independent companies, and it does not have group headquarters or a
holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
to set the overall business policy.
The six passenger railways of the JR Group are separated by region. Nearly all their services are within the prescribed geographic area. However, some long-distance operations extend beyond the boundaries. The ''
Shirasagi'' train service between and , for instance, uses JR West rolling stock but the segment of track between Nagoya and is owned by JR Central, whose crew manage the train on that section.
Japan Freight Railway Company
, or , is one of the seven constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It provides transportation of cargo nationwide throughout Japan. Its headquarters are in Shibuya, Tokyo near Shinjuku Station.
The Japan Railways Group was foun ...
operates all
freight
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including transp ...
service on the network previously owned by JNR.
In addition, the group includes two non-operating companies. These are the
Railway Technical Research Institute
, or , is the technical research company under the Japan Railways group of companies.
Overview
RTRI was established in its current form in 1986 just before Japanese National Railways (JNR) was privatised and split into separate JR group compani ...
and Railway Information Systems Co., Ltd.
To cover various non-railway business areas, each regional operator in the JR Group has its own group of subsidiary companies with names like "JR East Group" and "JR Shikoku Group."
Network
![JR Rail en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/JR_Rail_en.svg)
JR maintains a nationwide railway network as well as common ticketing rules that it inherited from JNR. Passengers may travel across several JR companies without changing trains and without purchasing separate tickets. However, trains running across the boundaries of JR companies have been reduced.
JR maintains the same ticketing rules based on the JNR rules and has an integrated reservation system known as
MARS
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
(jointly developed with
Hitachi
() is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...
). Some types of tickets (passes), such as
Japan Rail Pass
The , also called the JR Pass, is a rail pass for overseas visitors sold by the Japan Railways Group, and is valid for travel on all major forms of transportation provided by the JR Group in Japan, with a few exceptions. The Rail Pass is designed ...
and
Seishun 18 Ticket
The is a special discount ticket issued in Japan that allows holders one-day unlimited rides on the local trains of Japan Railways Group (JR) during limited periods of the year.
One ticket is valid for five (not necessarily continuous) days (mi ...
, are issued as "valid for all JR lines" and accepted by all passenger JR companies.
Ownership
In 1987, the government of Japan took steps to divide and privatize JNR. While division of operations began in April of that year, privatization was not immediate: initially, the government retained ownership of the companies. Privatization of some of the companies began in the early 1990s. By October 2016, all of the shares of JR East, JR Central, JR West and JR Kyushu had been offered to the market and they are now publicly traded. On the other hand, all of the shares of JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku and JR Freight are still owned by
Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, an
independent administrative institution
An Incorporated Administrative Agency (独立行政法人, ''Dokuritsu gyōsei hōjin'' or ''Dokugyo'' in abbreviation) is a type of legal corporation formulated by the Government of Japan under the Act on General Rules for Incorporated Administrat ...
of the state.
All the JR Group companies operating in the
Honshū
, historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...
region are constituents of the
Nikkei 225
The Nikkei 225, or , more commonly called the ''Nikkei'' or the ''Nikkei index'' (), is a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It has been calculated daily by the '' Nihon Keizai Shimbun'' (''The Nikkei'') newspaper since 1950 ...
and
TOPIX
, commonly known as TOPIX, along with the Nikkei 225, is an important stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in Japan, tracking all domestic companies of the exchange's Prime market division. It is calculated and published by the T ...
100 indexes.
Background
The demise of the government-owned system came after charges of serious management inefficiencies, profit losses, and
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
. By the early 1980s, passenger and freight business had declined, and fare increases had failed to keep up with higher labor costs.
What remained of the debt-ridden Japanese National Railways after its 1987 breakup was named the
Japanese National Railways Settlement Corporation. Its purpose was to dispose of assets and debts not absorbed by the successor companies and to execute other activities relating to the breakup, such as outplacement of former personnel.
The new companies introduced competition, cut their staffing, and made reform efforts. Initial public reaction to these moves was good: the combined passenger travel on the Japan Railways Group passenger companies in 1987 was 204.7 billion
passenger-kilometer
The units of measurement in transportation describes the unit of measurement used to express various transportation quantities, as used in statistics, planning, and their related applications.
Transportation quantity
The currently popular units ...
s, up 3.2% from 1986, while the passenger sector previously had been stagnant since 1975. The growth in passenger transport of private railways in 1987 was 2.6%, which meant that the Japan Railways Group's rate of increase was above that of the
private-sector
The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government.
Employment
The ...
railways for the first time since 1974. Demand for rail transport improved, although it still accounted for only 28% of passenger transportation and only 5% of cargo transportation in 1990. Rail passenger transportation was superior to automobiles in terms of
energy efficiency
Energy efficiency may refer to:
* Energy efficiency (physics), the ratio between the useful output and input of an energy conversion process
** Electrical efficiency, useful power output per electrical power consumed
** Mechanical efficiency, a ra ...
and of speed in long distance transportation.
The six companies had of routes (mostly gauge) in use in the late 1980s. About 25% of the routes were in double-track and multitrack sections, and the rest were single-track. In 1988 about 51% of the six companies' 1,000 locomotives were
diesel
Diesel may refer to:
* Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression
* Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines
* Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...
, and the rest were electric.
Japan Freight Railway Company
, or , is one of the seven constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It provides transportation of cargo nationwide throughout Japan. Its headquarters are in Shibuya, Tokyo near Shinjuku Station.
The Japan Railways Group was foun ...
owns its locomotives (295 diesel and 569 electric locomotives in 1988),
rolling stock
The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can b ...
, stations and
Intermodal container
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different Mode of transport, modes of trans ...
, but hires track from the six passenger companies. It runs fewer trains on less track than Japanese National Railways freight service did before its demise, but at increased revenues and higher
productivity
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
.
The leased
Shinkansen
The , colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. Initially, it was built to connect distant Japanese regions with Tokyo, the capital, to aid economic growth and development. Beyond l ...
railway facilities, including of gauge high-speed track, to the passenger companies on
Honshū
, historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...
. In 1991, the SPC was reorganized into the and the three operators bought their lines on 60-year loans.
[ :ja:新幹線#JR発足から現在までの流れ as of 2007-07-16T11:18:58] Some of the Shinkansen electric-powered trains operate at speeds up to 300 km/h.
Another nearly of routes are operated by major private railways and by what are known in Japan as
third sector railways—new companies, financed with private and local government funds—which often (not always) absorbed some of Japanese National Railways' rural lines. There were twenty-seven private and third-sector companies in 1989.
Unions
Various unions represent workers at the different JR Group companies, such as the
National Railway Workers' Union
The is a Japanese trade union, which is usually referred to as in Japanese. Historically, Kokurō represented many of the workers who worked for Japanese National Railways (JNR), from which the union derived its name. For several decades in the ...
,
All Japan Construction, Transport and General Workers' Union
The is a Japanese trade union group, which is usually referred to as in Japanese. It is affiliated to Zenroren
The , commonly known in Japanese as , is a national trade union center.
Founding and history
Zenroren was founded on November 21, ...
,
Doro-Chiba
is a Japanese trade union, which is usually referred to as . It has also been referred to as the Chiba Motormen's Union in English. It split from the National Railway Motive Power Union (Doro) in 1979.
History Doro founding
Doro split from th ...
, and the
Japan Confederation of Railway Workers' Unions
The is a Japanese trade union, which is usually referred to as in Japanese.
History
The union was founded on 2 February 1987, with the merger of the National Railway Locomotive Engineers' Union (Doro) and the Japan Railway Workers' Union (Tets ...
.
See also
*
Rail transport in Japan
Rail transport in Japan is a major means of passenger transport, especially for mass and high-speed travel between major cities and for commuter transport in urban areas. It is used relatively little for freight transport, accounting for ju ...
*
List of railway companies in Japan
List of railway companies in Japan lists Japanese railway operators.
Those in ''italics'' are the third-sector operators; being half-public, half-private.
Japan Railways Group
The Japan Railways Group consists of the seven companies that were fo ...
*
Japan Railways locomotive numbering and classification
This page explains the numbering and classification schemes for locomotives employed by the Japanese Government Railways, the Japanese National Railways and the Japan Railways Group.
Steam locomotives
Pre-nationalization
Prior to the nation ...
*
SoftBank Telecom
SoftBank Telecom Corporation ( ja, ソフトバンクテレコム会社), previously as Japan Telecom Co. Ltd. ( ja, 日本テレコム株式会社, links=no,Nippon Terekomu Kabushiki-gaisha) was a Japanese telephone company of the SoftBank gro ...
– former Japan Telecom, an affiliated company of
JNR
The abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987.
Network Railways
As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pre ...
established in 1984
References
*
Japan
External links
{{Authority control
*
1067 mm gauge railways in Japan
Standard gauge railways in Japan
Conglomerate companies of Japan
Japanese brands