FREIGHT RAIL TRANSPORT IN JAPAN – NOT LESS EXCITING THAN PASSENGER ONES

ton-kilometers

while holding their rail infrastructure.Class 2 states for enterprises that provide rail passenger and/or freight services using rail infrastructure owned by another organization.And Class 3 states for enterprises that own infrastructure only for renting it to an enterprise of Class 2. JR Freight is an example of Class 2 [45].Currently, major players in Japanese freight rail transport are [49]: foremostly JR Freight as the most well-known and recognizable operator, together with Nippon Express Co., Ltd., Kamigumi Co., Ltd., AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings Co., Ltd., Yusen Logistics Co., Ltd., and others.

WHAT CAN BE FOUND IN RESEARCH LITERATURE?
Certain key indicators of the Japanese railway market are as follows.Japanese rail track gauge is 1067 mm.The rail track operation length in 2014 was 8,166.8km [50] and it slightly decreased to 7,959 km in 2018 [41].In 2018 [41], 426 trains run per day with trainkilometers c.a. 189,000 km/day (approx.200,000 km/day in 2015 according to [50]), with the total volume of traffic: 42,628 , 000 tons (43,816,000 tons in 2014 [3]) and ton-kilometers performance as 21,400,000,000 ton-km/year (20,700,000,000 tone-km/year in 2015) -more data are given in TABLE 1 and TABLE 2. This number of freight trains is currently equal to a number of container trains (425 items), whereas in general 737 freight trains run across the country on average [49].In 2014 only 5% (c.a.10,000,000,000 ton-kilometers -please, compare it with TABLE 2, where data are slightly different) of freight share were operated by rail transport mode (therefore, it was more than doubled in last years) whereas 50% (215,000,000,000 ton-kilometers) were operated by road transport and 45% (c.a.180,000,000,000 ton-kilometers) by domestic shipping [50].It has slightly changed since 2008 when 4% of freight was operated by rail transport mode and 58.7% by road mode of transport (Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency 2008).
Freight transport in Japan in 2015 was operated by 243 stations which include 116 stations for container handling [50].The rolling stock in 2015 consisted of 617 locomotives (2018: 574 locomotives [39]) and 7,551 freight cars including 42 cars for freight EMUs (2018: the same quantity [39]).A number of containers held by JRF was 66,900 containers (2018: 67,369 of JR Freight and 17,851 private containers [39]).It has changed a year later downsized to 61,398 of JR Freight 17,753 private containers, which might be reasoned by the fact that in February 2018 it has been announced that 2,600 mm-high containers (Class20) have become the general-purpose container size [40].
As mentioned in [50], the maximum train length in Japan is 540 m (which equals up to 26 freight cars and a locomotive).This is confirmed by the research observation of freight trains by the author who applied the methodology of non-participating observation altogether with filming and in-situ counting during his long-period stay in Japan in [2019][2020] In the Japanese railway operation system, transits and operations related to railway mode of transport are mostly realized during the nights [50] -it is 90%.The main reason is that during the day passenger transport is prioritized.Moreover, as it was mentioned before railway freight operators do not possess their own track infrastructure -they borrow it from passengers' operators.An example timetable of Tokaido Line, given in [50], presented that from 0:00 am to 5:00 am all trains are freight trains (timetables in Japan are rarely changed, therefore it is assumed as still actual information).Local passenger trains are not operated in that time window.Nishimura [50] mentioned that the frequency of freight runs between 01:30 am and 2:30 am is every 5 minutes.In Japan, long-distance rail freight is a healthy niche market.It is used especially for paper, chemicals, other industrial products, and foodstuffs.Containers represent two-thirds of the transported goods (in tons).Intermodal rail transport in Japan mostly uses 12-ft containers standardized by Japan Railway [11].The regular operation concern short freight train of 1,300 ton that consists of train 26 cars.However, specialized trains such as Toyota Longpass Express are operated as well.The distance it runs is 900 kilometers between Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture) and Morioka (Iwate Prefecture) and it certainly transports auto parts, typically by 40 items of 10-ton truckloads.m) [49]; N/A -not analyzed, no data found up-to-date; approximated values are as such due to the fact that these were analyzed based on graphs without detailed specifications.N/A Trucks and especially ships have become more efficient in operating on freight and are now transporting larger volumes of commodities over longer distances to the detriment of rail freight [23].It is still actual, as an island country, Japan, with its versatility surrounded by seas, can rely on water transport.

TAB. 1 Prepravovaná nákladná tonáž (v tisícoch) -na základe [29], pokiaľ nie je uvedené
Japanese freight rail transport is rarely considered in research publications.Therefore, the author decided to prepare a compilation of the data whenever possible.The aim: data completion and presentation for future comparisons with various worldwide markets.

FANTASTIC RAIL TRANSPORT DATA AND HOW TO FIND THEM?
As can be observed in previous sections, data related to freight rail transport are not often published by researchers.Therefore, it was decided to develop a set of proper, historical data for several characteristics of rail freight transport in Japan.o) [6]given as <number of container + number of carloads>; N/A -not analyzed, no data found.r) [26]; N/A -not analyzed, no data found.

CONCLUSIONS
Japan is a country with high concentrations of mountainous terrain, which makes the construction and maintenance of infrastructure more expensive and allocated mainly at the islands' borders.On the other hand, freight container transport is proceeded mainly by coast shipping.Although the rail transport network is highly developed, the scale of freight transport by rail branch is not so common due to the demanding load of passenger rail transport.The study on freight rail data enabled to obtain the following results, assumptions, and speculations: In many cases, empty containers are returned by trains from locations to which the goods were delivered by coastal shipping; consequently, using foldable containers should be considered so that more of them could be carried on the 26-wagon long trains, Data has been collected for future comparisons with other countries however, there are still gaps in the collected data -therefore it is advisable to continue with the collection of archival data and await for current data to be collected -the latter may be updated with the publication of the next Japanese Statistical Yearbooks (nevertheless, it should be noted that sometimes data are published with from two to three years delay), There is still an observed lack of references and certain statistics related to rail freight transport in Japan -organizing, cataloguing, and grouping data is timeconsuming and requires further intensive research and analysis, not only of scientific publications, but above all of websites, reports of railway operators and domestic authorities, Objective for further work: further analyses to address the issue of transport optimization and simulation of foldable containers.

TABLE 1 ,
tonkilometers given in TABLE 2, freight train-kilometers and rolling stock-kilometers given in

TABLE 3 ,
freight revenue given in TABLE 4, infrastructure investment and maintenance investment given in

TABLE 5 .
It was not always possible to find accurate data, hence the gaps in tables appeared.