I recently saw a video of “pushers” stuffing passengers into a Japanese train. The video appeared to be dated, and this got me to wondering whether pushers still exist.
Surely, I thought, given that Japan has been a relatively affluent society for several decades, with a fetish for public works spending, and something of a birth dearth, they must long since have built the necessary number of subway cars. But I’ve never been there, and so I ask.
That’s revolting. But it is unlikely more equipment would help. They are probably running at minimum headway already. Although the time wasted in the pushing is probably counter-productive.
Just a few days ago I read in the Montreal paper the suggestion to hire pushers here. They opened an extension to the island north of the city and it is carrying twice as many as projected, rendering that line seriously overcrowded. But they will be getting new equipment.
I don’t know the numbers for Tokyo, but there is simply an upper limit of how many trains can pass a station in a certain amount of time - you can have 3 trains in 5 minutes, but you can’t have 20 trains in 5 minutes.
The length of the station is also fixed and limits the length of the train. They could get double-sized trains - if their tunnels are big enough.
And space is rather limited, so they can’t build additional lines.
But I guess that since many milions of people live in Tokyo, they simply have reached upper limit on how many trains they can safely run through the switches and still have safe braking distance etc., so there will simply be too many people wanting to enter not enough trains at the same time. And 80% or so of the people will start workday between 7 and 9 am, and return at the same time in the evening, so you can’t space it during the day, either.
I have been on the Tokyo transit system during rush hour, as have many other Dopers, I’m sure. In my case very rarely, fortunately. It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced.
It’s basically an unending sea of people.
Ed
Do they have seats on these cars? Chicago is running cars with fewer seats during rush hour, but they’re doing it wrong. They stick a pair of “Max” cars to the end of the train, but the real need is in the middle of the train and platform. They don’t want to spend the time to disassemble each train and stick the Max cars in the middle.
Japan truly is the frotteur’s paradise.
OK, who’s going to write the song parody?
Yes.
In my experience, it’s never been as bad as the linked video, although once you’re inside, forget about any sort of movement. There’s very little that can be done because the trains are already running at extremely short intervals. The “pushers” are just train station employees, that’s not all they do.
Here is the Master’s column on the subject (from way back in 1977): Are there really “pushers” on Tokyo subways?
YES, there are still pushers on platforms pushing people into trains during morning rush. Take it from someone who rides one of the most packed train lines into Tokyo each morning…ME. 
If it is the Tokyo area, the train in the first video looks like “JR Sobu Line” that cuts across the center of the city. What is depicted there is fairly common practice. However, the pushers are necessary for an hour or so on regular weekdays and not at all stations in the city.
Apparently, this video is from the Hibarigaoka station on the Seibu line, circa 1991. On another copy of this video, several Japanese posters are commenting about how different things are on this line nowadays. Also, this particular situation was probably due to a late train.
More recent videos:
For a more civilized endless flow of people, the Osaka subway:
Here’s a demonstration of the ever-useful grab-the-edges-of-the-door-and-push-yourself-in technique:
And, on the left side of this you can see a station employee pushing someone in. From Tokyo’s Shinjuku station, the busiest in the world.
Doesn’t Japan also have “Ladies Only” train cars?
That’s the midousuji line that I take every day. Not too crowded, unless you take it around 8am and there are pushers there.
Yes, there are women-only cars marked by signs on the station floor. About 3 carriages per train are women-only, and only between certain hours of the day.
Yes, “Pink Cars,” although they’re only ladies only during rush hour.
ETA: Ack, missed Isamu’s post. Oh, well. I can confirm that they have them in Tokyo as well, at least.
What’s the clearance in the subway tunnels like? Any chance they could run double-decker cars?
There were also pushers on the Hong Kong MTR last time I was there (2007), which seems to be a relatively recent “innovation”.
I gathered this information from the Japanese Wikipedia so it’s worth what it’s worth but it appears that the main reason why double-decker cars aren’t used is because they would actually cause congestions at the platform. Japanese train cars are designed to minimize the distance from door to standing place. A double-decker would necessarily involve more movement to get in and out, resulting in longer stops at each station.
For those curious about what a typical cars looks like inside:
How is it possible to get off the subway if you are stuck in the middle of the car and your stop is before the folks stuffed in closer to the door?
Your guess is as good as mine how that works in train cars as packed as in the YouTube link at the top of this thread, but on the ‘L’ here in Chicago, it involves a lot of "excuse me"s and usually, a couple people standing in the vestibule by the open door have to step off to let you out. It is not a particularly enjoyable experience.
Japan has a population density which is about ten times as much as the USA (339 vs. 33 /Km2). This gives some perspective when people complain about immigration because “America can only hold so many people”.