MARS terminal - JR - Tokyo area - Dec 2015

, which stands for ''Multi Access (originally Magnetic-electronic Automatic) seat Reservation System'', is a train ticket reservation system used by the railway companies of former

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 ...

, currently

Japan Railways Group 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 assets and operations of the government-owned Japanese National Railways (JNR) on April 1, 1987. Mo ...

(JR Group) and travel agencies in Japan, developed jointly by

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 ...

and the Railway Information Systems Co., Ltd (JR Systems), a JR Group company jointly owned by the seven members of the group.

Outline

The host of the system is located in

Kokubunji, Tokyo file:Kondoato.JPG, 250px, Ruins of Musashi Kokubun-ji temple is a Cities of Japan, city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 126,791, and a population density of 11,000 persons per km ...

, and managed by JR Systems. Ticket offices at JR stations equipped with MARS terminals are called , selling tickets of all JR Group trains and partly highway buses and route buses and ferries. It is possible for passengers to reserve tickets of buses and trains from one month prior to the given trip. Currently the Midori no Madoguchi is named by JR Group excluding

JR Central is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and in Japanese as JR Tōkai ( ja, JR東海, links=no). ''Tōkai'' is a reference to the geographical ...

.List of the stations are installed for Midori no Madoguchi in JR Hokkaido
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History

The MARS-1 system was created by Mamoru Hosaka, Yutaka Ohno, and others at the Japanese National Railways' R&D Institute (now 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 was built in 1958. It was the world's first seat reservation system for trains. The MARS-1 was capable of reserving seat positions, and was controlled by a

transistor computer A transistor computer, now often called a second-generation computer, is a computer which uses discrete transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The first generation of electronic computers used vacuum tubes, which generated large amounts of heat, ...

with a

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

consisting of a thousand

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...

s. The latest version of MARS uses the MARS 501 system which was introduced in 2002.

Gallery

File:MARS1(1).jpg, Preserved MARS-1 mainframe at Railway Museum, Saitama File:Himeji Station 20090128 013.jpg, A ''Midori no Madoguchi'' ticket office at Himeji Station in 2009

References

External links

JR Systems
{{japan-rail-transport-stub Passenger rail transport in Japan Travel technology Computer-related introductions in 1960 Train-related introductions in 1960 1960 software Computer reservation systems Route planning software Hitachi