Transportation at The Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Some of the people who find Tunnel Time most useful are individuals and groups travelling to a new city for a specific event. We’ve had many conference attendees and sports fans use our site to help them navigate a new city during a work event or when watching their team on the road. There is one big event next year in one of our cities that we have our eyes on.
Tokyo 2020 🇯🇵
Yesterday marked the one year countdown to The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics in Japan. There are 42 venues spread across Tokyo (and the rest of Japan) that will host the 33 Olympic sports next year. Getting to and from these venues has been problematic in previous Olympic Games. In 2016, Rio de Janeiro’s horrible transit and transportation infrastructure became much worse once 6.6 million foreign tourists came to town. Will Tokyo be able to handle the increased strain on their transportation system? Yes. Daily ridership of subways in Tokyo is already over 6 million passengers each work day. With a population of over 9 million, Tokyo subway and train systems can handle transportation on this scale. “But what about those photos I see of officers with white gloves shoving people into trains?” Yes, that’s going to happen, but that is the norm in Tokyo. As we previously mentioned on our site, Japan has one of the best fare and ticketing systems for transportation in the world. The IC Card network will scale fine to handle the increased ridership. It’s not just about existing transportation offerings in Tokyo. There are some new vehicles planning to debut at the Olympic Games to help fans travel from venue to venue.
A map of the venue locations for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. Source: tokyo2020.org
Self Driving Cars 🤖🚙
One of the current versions of Hinomaru Kotsu’s robot cars. Photo: Toru Hanai/Reuters
Really? Self driving cars? You’re going to debut publicly available, fully autonomous driverless cars at one of the biggest events of the decade? Yes, yes they are. The Hinomaru Kotsu taxi company has been working with self driving technology developers for years to bring “robot taxis” to Tokyo. Turns out, they’re actually pretty far along. Live trials have been taking place since early 2016 bringing people to and from work in a fully autonomous, driverless vehicle. 🤯 As for the roads, Tokyo is also testing traffic slow downs by simulating congestion and reducing lanes just to test how traffic will be affected.
Existing Transportation 🚇🚆🚍
I think self driving cars at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics would be an absolute treat, but I would stick with the existing fleet of transportation options. As always, we’ve got all the info here on Tunnel Time to learn how to buy your tickets, ride, transfer and exit whichever vehicle you need to get to your venue.
If you were lucky enough to score tickets to some of the sporting events in Tokyo next year, have an amazing time. If you need help getting around, we’ve got you covered.
