JR East, JR West Struggle with Unprofitable Train Lines

Tokyo, Oct. 29 (Jiji Press)--East Japan Railway Co. and West Japan Railway Co. continued to struggle with unprofitable local train lines due to a decline in the number of passengers, data released by the companies on Tuesday showed.

East Japan Railway, or JR East, said that 72 sections of 36 train lines had an average daily number of passengers of less than 2,000 per kilometer in fiscal 2023, which ended last March, an increase of 10 sections from the previous year.

The 72 sections, which account for around 40 pct of JR East’s total, all ran deficits, suffering a total loss of around 75.7 billion yen.

While the 72 sections generated revenues of some 6.3 billion yen, their operating costs came to around 82.1 billion yen.

The biggest loss-generating section was between Murakami and Tsuruoka stations on the Uetsu Line, with a loss of 4,968 million yen.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]