Tokyo Rush Hour Question

[Mablinki]

Hi there. I am visiting Tokyo with my daughter at the end of August this year and need to know when to avoid the subway/jr line. When is it most crowded with commuters? 16:00 to 18:00? Please advise.

Thanks in advance.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by Mablinki

Hi there. I am visiting Tokyo with my daughter at the end of August this year and need to know when to avoid the subway/jr line. When is it most crowded with commuters? 16:00 to 18:00? Please advise.

Thanks in advance.

Naturally it is more crowded around the time you are stating, but I don't think it is so bad you should actively avoid trains, unless you are extremely claustrophobic, and then you probably should avoid Tokyo altogether.

[samokan]

trains all over metropolis are always crowded 24/7 , but it is not that crowded that they will need train attendants to push people inside, that only happens during the morning rush hour on a weekday..

so what is the definition of your crowded??

[kyo_9]

usually people go back from work around 5.. so MAYBE it's not soo crowded around 4 o'clock..

[edelweiss]

I don't know if you are the mother or father, but if you're the mom I thought I would mention that you can take the Women's Only cars during the morning rush. They mark where to wait for those cars on the platforms.

I've been on really full trains before 10AM (everyone shoulder to shoulder and back to back) and after 4PM until 7PM depending on the line. If you need to get somewhere during a higher traffic time perhaps you can ask people at your hotel for less busy alternative routes to get around. Some lines get more crowded than others.

[dirtyroboto]

This is also dependant on the car (carriage) you ride in. Some cars are popular due to the exits of the stations. This is more the case for interchange stations where people with dive off the train to make their connection.

In general cars 5 and 7 are located for many exits. This is also the case for 1 and 10, but not so much on certain lines.
Car 4 is quite a good choice, due to 4 being an unlucky number for Japanese.
Also 2 and 9 are normally better because of the 30 second walk to the stairs that most Japanese don't like to do.

[jasonyuuu]

I didn't know there were so many ways I could avoid the crowd during rush hour.. Definitely will be helpful when I go there one day.

[acjama]

For me, rush hours are weekdays 6:30 - 10:00 (direction center) and 18:00 - 23:00 (direction suburbs). Weekends the rush hours are 24/7 (both directions) where the fun/pretty places are.

But of course, this depends on your definition of "crowdy". There is a free iPhone app called "Navitime" that tells you when you'd be better off kissing a tattooed hell monkey with rabies rather than board a Japanese train (i.e. travel schedule plus a projected congestion report). I believe there is an Android version too, but they are on-line apps only.

[JohnBraden]

I always went for the end cars during rush hour.... They weren't crowded at all and since I didn't have to be anywhere by any time, the extra walking time to the car from the stairs was not an issue.... Then again, I only took the Yamanote-sen during rush hour....