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Rail transport in Japan is a major means of passenger transport, especially for mass and high-speed travel between major cities and for commuter transport in metropolitan areas. ==Overview== Rail transport services in Japan are provided by more than 100 private companies, including * Six Japan Railways Group (JR) regional companies (state owned until 1987) which provide passenger services to most parts of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu; * The nationwide JR freight company; and * 16 major regional companies which provide railway services as part of their corporate operations. There are also dozens of smaller local private railways. Many of the private rail companies rank among the top corporations in the country. Railways were built by private corporations developing integrated communities along the railway lines, allowing them to achieve profitability by diversifying into real estate, retail, and numerous other businesses. Regional governments, and companies funded jointly by regional governments and private companies, also provide rail service. There are 27,268 km of rail crisscrossing the country. JR (a group of companies formed after privatization of JNR) controlled 20,135 km of these lines as of March 31, 1996, with the remaining 7,133 km in the hands of private enterprise local railway companies. Japan's railways carried 22.24 billion passengers (395.9 billion passenger-kilometres) in fiscal 2006. In comparison, .〔(The World Factbook: ''Country Comparison :: Railways'' )〕 Because of the massive use of its railway system, Japan is home to 46 of the world's 50 busiest stations.〔(The 51 busiest train stations in the world– All but 6 located in Japan ‹ Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion ). Japantoday.com. Retrieved on 2014-05-24.〕 Fukuoka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo and Yokohama have subway systems. However, unlike Europe, the vast majority of passenger traffic is on suburban commuter trains that criss-cross metropolitan areas. In addition, many cities have streetcar and monorail networks. Japan pioneered the high-speed shinkansen or "bullet train", which now links Japan's largest cities at speeds of up to 320 km/h (200 mph). However, other trains running on the conventional line or "zairaisen" remain relatively slow, operating at fastest 160 km/h and mostly under 130 km/h. Japan's railways carried 51.9 million tons (23.2 billion tonne-kilometres) of goods in fiscal 2006.〔 The share of railways in the national logistics is as small as 0.84% (2005). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rail transport in Japan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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