Yurikamome

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A Yurikamome train near Shiodome Station
A Yurikamome train near Shiodome Station

New Transit Yurikamome (新交通ゆりかもめ Shinkōtsū Yurikamome?), formally the Tokyo Waterfront New Transit Waterfront Line (東京臨海新交通臨海線 Tōkyō Rinkai Shinkōtsū Rinkai-sen?) is an automated guideway transit service operated by the Tokyo Waterfront New Transit Corporation, connecting Shimbashi to Toyosu, passing through the artificial island of Odaiba in Tokyo, Japan, a market in which it competes with the cheaper but less glamorous Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit (Rinkai Line).

The line is named after the black-headed seagull (yurikamome in Japanese), a common denizen of Tokyo Bay and the official prefectural bird.

Contents

[edit] Technology

Yurikamome is Tokyo's first fully automated transit system, controlled entirely by computers with no drivers on board. However, the line is not the first in Japan, as Kobe's Port Liner opened in 1981, 14 years before the Yurikamome.

Yurikamome is sometimes incorrectly called a monorail, but the trains run with rubber-tyred wheels on elevated concrete track guided by the side walls.

[edit] History

View from the Yurikamome
View from the Yurikamome

Before its 1995 opening, it was widely feared that the Yurikamome would end up as a multibillion-yen boondoggle. The artificial island of Odaiba, which it serves, had been designed and constructed at prodigious expense before Japan's economic crash and, much like London's equally beleaguered Canary Wharf, there simply didn't seem to be enough demand to support it. In the first few months of operation, ridership hovered around 27,000 passengers per day, only a little less than the predicted 29,000, but still far less than the 80,000 passengers needed to be profitable.

However, in 1996, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government rezoned Odaiba from pure business and residential to also permit entertainment zones. Tokyo may be next to the sea on the map, but before Odaiba, effectively the entire coastline had been taken over by an endless concrete strip of ports and warehouses. Promoted as the "Rainbow Town", the island provided Tokyo with a strip of livable seaside, and within one year, ridership doubled to 60,000. As more and more restaurants, shopping malls, exhibition centers and museums opened, traffic continued to grow.

It is not just the island that became popular, as the Yurikamome had become an attraction in itself. To raise itself from ground level to the Rainbow Bridge, the Yurikamome makes a 270-degree loop, providing panoramic views of both mainland Tokyo and Odaiba. Easily accessible and comfortable, most island goers opt for the Yurikamome despite its high price, with the fares of 180 to 370 yen being nearly twice that of a normal subway.

An accident on the Yurikamome occurred on the afternoon of April 14, 2006. According to a government commission, one of the axles on the six-car train was cracked due to metal fatigue, causing a rubber tire on the train to fall off. [1] The train came to a halt near Fune-no-Kagakukan station, and services were suspended on the entire line. This came at the start of a busy weekend when events were taking place at Tokyo Big Sight on Odaiba, but, according to news reports, alternate means of transportation were offered and there was no major confusion. The Yurikamome resumed limited train service on April 17 while further inspections and tests continued, with full service restored on April 19.

[edit] Future

The Yurikamome's future looks bright: at over 100,000 passengers per day, the Yurikamome is making a net profit and will pay off its loans in full faster than the 20 years originally anticipated. Operating frequency, hours of operation and number of trainsets have been continually revised upwards to accommodate the ever-increasing number of passengers.

Further extension to Kachidoki is currently under consideration.[2]

[edit] Stations

Yurikamome
tSTR
Tokyo Metro:Ginza Line
STRrg HBHF tKRZ
JR-E: Yamanote Line
STRrg HBHF tKRZ
JR-E: Keihin-Tōhoku Line
tSTRrg tHBHF tKRZt
JR-E: Yokosuka Line
STRrg HBHF tBHF
JR-E: Tōkaidō Main Line
STRrg HSTR tKRZ
JR-C: Tōkaidō Shinkansen
STR uKBFa tSTRlf
0.0 Shinbashi
KRZt tHBHF tHSTR
Toei: Asakusa Line
STR uSTR tSTRrg
Toei: Ōedo Line
STR uBHF tBHF
0.4 Shiodome
KRZt uSTR tSTRrf
STRrf uBHF BOOT
1.6 Takeshiba Ferries for Izu Islands
uBHF
2.2 Hinode
uBHF
3.1 Shibaura-futō
uWBRÜCKE
Rainbow Bridge (Tokyo)
uBHF
7.0 Odaiba-kaihinkōen (Odaiba Beach Park)
uBHF
7.8 Daiba
uBHF
8.4 Fune-no-kagakukan (Nautical Museum)
uBHF
9.2 Telecom Center
uBHF
10.2 Aomi
uWBRÜCKE
Akemi Bridge
uBHF
11.3 Kokusai-tenjijō-seimon (Tokyo Big Sight)
uKDSr uABZlg
uBHF
12.0 Ariake
tHSTR uSTR tHBHF
TWR Rinkai Line (Kokusai-Tenjijō)
uBHF
12.7 Ariake-tennis-no-mori
uWBRÜCKE
Ariake North Bridge
uBHF
13.5 Shijō-mae
uBHF
14.0 Shin-toyosu
tSTRlg uSTR
tBHF uKBFe
14.7 Toyosu Tokyo Metro: Yūrakuchō Line

Yurikamome trains are taken in and out of service at Ariake, and are stored in a yard near Tokyo Big Sight when out of service.

Since 2006, all the stations use the recorded voices of different seiyū (voice actors) for their announcements. [3]

Station Seiyū
U-01 Shimbashi Masumi Asano
U-02 Shiodome Hiro Shimono
U-03 Takeshiba Chiaki Takahashi
U-04 Hinode Yurika Ochiai
U-05 Shibaura-futō Maria Yamamoto
U-06 Odaiba-kaihinkōen Kenichi Suzumura
U-07 Daiba Toshiyuki Morikawa
U-08 Fune-no-kagakukan Motoki Takagi
U-09 Telecom Center Kaori Mizuhashi
U-10 Aomi Kōsuke Toriumi
U-11 Kokusai-tenjijō-seimon Mikako Takahashi
U-12 Ariake Mai Nakahara
U-13 Ariake-tennis-no-mori Chihiro Suzuki
U-14 Shijō-mae Tatsuhisa Suzuki
U-15 Shin-toyosu Natsuko Kuwatani
U-16 Toyosu Sōichirō Hoshi

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Mass transit in the Tokyo area (Number of lines indicated in parentheses)
JR lines
■Yamanote • ■Chūō • ■Chūō-Sōbu • ■Jōban • ■Keihin-Tōhoku • ■Keiyō • ■Saikyō •■Shōnan-Shinjuku • ■Sōbu Rapid • ■Tōkaidō • ■Utsunomiya • ■Yokosuka
Tokyo Metro lines
○Chiyoda (C) • ○Fukutoshin (F) • ○Ginza (G) • ○Hibiya (H) • ○Marunouchi (M) • ○Namboku (N) • ○Tōzai (T) • ○Yūrakuchō (Y) • ○Hanzōmon (Z)
Toei lines
Subway: ○Asakusa (A) • ○Ōedo (E) • ○Mita (I) • ○Shinjuku (S) • Guideway: Nippori-Toneri • Streetcar: Arakawa
Major / semi-major lines
Keikyū (5) • Keiō (7) • Keisei (7) • Odakyū (5) • Seibu (13) • Shin-Keisei • Sōtetsu (2) • Tōbu (12) • Tōkyū (8)
Other lines
Disney Resort Line • Tama Monorail • Tokyo Monorail • TWR • TX • Yurikamome
Suburban, JR
■Hachikō • ■Kawagoe • ■Mito • ■Musashino • ■Nambu • ■Narita • ■Negishi • ■Ōme • ■Ryōmō • ■Sagami • ■Sōbu Main • ■Sotobō • ■Takasaki • ■Tōgane • ■Tsurumi • ■Uchibō • ■Yokohama
Suburban, Non-JR
Terminals
Miscellaneous