Tokyo is quite a crowded city, with over half a million citizens, and they’re being asked to work from home. This is part of a trial scheme that’s meant to tackle transport congestion that will be caused by the 2020 Olympic Games.
More than 20 million people use public transportation in Tokyo every single day, so it’s no wonder that the arrival of over 600,000 visitors for the Olympic and Paralympic Games is a concern for the already strained transportation system.
To avoid travel chaos, the Japanese government is trying out the “Telework” scheme, where 600,000 workers from 3,000 different companies are encouraged to work remotely for a period of two weeks starting on July 24.
One of the most notorious things about Tokyo is that the metro system is super busy, with an average of 3.64 million passengers going through the Shinjuku Station every day.
In fact, the station has earned the Guinness World Record for being the busiest station with over 200 exits. Greater Tokyo is the most populated metropolitan area in the world, with almost 38 million inhabitants.
Google data released this past July showed that the Chuo Line is one of the most crowded transit lines in the world, and it’s not that much different in other areas of the city.
Trains are at 200% Capacity Already
It’s no wonder that experts have serious concerns about the impact of the upcoming Olympics, which will take place from July 24 to August 9, 2020, and the Paralympics, which are set to end on September 6.
At Chuo University, professor Azuma Taguchi has studied the issue of transport overcrowding and he reported to Reuters last November that trains are known to reach 200% capacity sometimes.
He also stated that there’s a great possibility that this number could increase by one and a half times during the Olympics. What this means is that the subway system would be completely crippled if it came to reach 300% capacity.
Over 50,000 employees from Fujitsu and over 10,000 employees from NEC will join this scheme, which has already been trialed on small scales since 2017. As a result of this scheme, the company Ricoh will shut down headquarters so that 2,000 employees can work from home.
The first trial of this scheme, which took place in 2017, saw 63,000 people working from home. In 2018, the number of participants increased from 300,000 workers from 1,682 organizations. Thus making the 2019 trial the biggest one to date.
