It was an admission that would no doubt raise a sardonic smile among many commuters, and perhaps have them dreaming of relocating to Japan.
The operator of a private railway firm that serves the Tokyo suburbs has issued an apology after one of its trains departed 20 seconds ahead of schedule.
Passengers boarding Tuesday’s 9.44.40am Tsukuba Express from Minami Nagareyama station, just north of Tokyo, were unaware anything was amiss when the train, which had arrived on time, pulled away from the platform at 9.44.20am.
The train’s operator, though, believed the foul-up was serious enough to warrant an apology. “We deeply apologise for the severe inconvenience imposed upon our customers,” the Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company said in a statement.
The train’s conductor had not properly checked the train’s timetable, the firm said, adding that the crew had been instructed to strictly follow procedure to prevent a recurrence.
Passengers who might have made the train had it left on time in fact suffered little inconvenience: the next one arrived just four minutes later.
While delays – even of just a minute – prompt profuse apologies by Japanese train operators, Metropolitan Intercity’s mea culpa drew inevitable, and unfavourable, comparisons with rail services in other countries.
Simon Woodgate (@echobass)Tsukuba Express issues #apology for leaving 20s early, I didn't disembark quick enough at Brighton: @SouthernRailUK locked me in. No apology
November 16, 2017
The Tsukuba Express carries 130 million passengers a year between Akihabara in Tokyo and Tsukuba in Ibaraki prefecture, a journey of about 45 minutes.
Some on social media said early departures were not uncommon in Japan. While others lauded Japan’s super-efficient rail service as one of the country’s greatest attributes, the quest for punctuality can go tragically wrong.
In 2005, more than 100 people died and hundreds more were injured when a packed commuter train left the tracks and crashed into an apartment complex in western Japan.
The derailment occurred after the driver used excessive speed in an attempt to make up for a 90-second delay.
Rail unions blamed the crash on a culture of fear in which employees were subjected to humiliating punishments for committing minor errors such as arriving seconds late or slightly overrunning platforms.
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On the other hand, the Denen-friggin-toshi line in Tokyo is notorious for delays (of up to 10 whole minutes sometimes!) and overcrowding every rush hour. On Wednesday this week it stopped completely from 6 to 10am, meaning literally hundreds of thousands of people, including yours truly, had to figure out another way to get to work.
Still, though, this was unusual enough to have journalists and TV helicopters swarming around the affected stations…
Heard on one of my commutes
"We apologise for the late arrival of this train. This is because it did not leave on time."
Southern rail made me board an actual train this week, and not a rail replacement bus. Worse still, it was running on time. Did they apologise? No.
As Magnus Mills says in 'The Maintenance Of Headway' , "There's no excuse for being early."
We once saw a driver changeover for a bullet train. It was like changing the guard at Buckingham Palace , everyone saluting everyone else. Everyone seems to take a great deal of pride in their work, no matter how humble, and as a result ,there is a great deal mutual respect.
20 seconds !! Just awful
I used to quite enjoy getting in the first carriage on Japanese trains while I was working in Tokyo, so I could watch the driver. They have a special stop watch which they would point at with their white gloved hand as they moved the throttle to leave the station....
Joking aside, can someone in Southern rail organise a hands on job exchange system with the Japanese so they can understand how it is done?
But whatever it produced, the drivers would bo on strike about it.
I had to have words with my NHS health care professional last week when I was called into my out patient appointment 1 minute early. This is actually true.
As someone who has had the privilege of travelling on Japanese public transport, I'm not surprised by this. There's a stark contrast in attitudes of staff in Japan, who seem to operate on a can do basis and staff on our public transport services who only bring out excuses when services are more than 15 minutes late and give out no information at all unless forced to.
On my last trip to Japan, I had the misfortune of being around when an earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter Scale hit Tokyo. Public transport was suspended for 45 minutes. On Southeastern Trains over the last month we've had to tolerate an amended timetable because of the potential for leaf fall. Most of the time the weather was fine.
Like I say, different attitudes.
You can walk quite far in twenty seconds
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