Here are some highlights of my experiences traveling by transit in Vietnam and Japan. Some great experiences, some not so good, but always valuable in that it gets me thinking about ways to improve transit back in America.
One highlight of my trip was the Shinkansen bullet train in Japan, which reaches 175 mph. This has always been on my bucket list:
But before I talk about Japan, my transit travelog actually starts in my wife’s lovely hometown of Da Nang, Vietnam. Motorbikes and bicycles remain ubiquitous here but app-based Grab taxis and private cars are on the rise and the streets are more congested every time I visit.
The local minibuses are very comfortable and just $.30 US … but infrequent. The official Dana Bus app is not user friendly, and Google Maps shows the routes but without real time information. CX improvements are definitely needed.
Da Nang is highly recommended if you ever travel to Vietnam. It is a beautiful seaside community with friendly people and delicious food. Here I am having coffee with my wife, brother-in-laws, and a nephew. The Vietnamese coffee - caphe sua - is strong and sweet. The chairs at the cafes are mini size - just takes a little getting used to : )
The next leg of my trip was the crowded and energetic Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, where they just opened a new subway system!
But before we get to that, let's talk about the buses. Buses in Saigon are frequent and often faster than driving, like this trip to the Opera House planned on Google Transit:
Our bus to the Opera House was fast due to a lane reserved for buses and motorbikes. The fare was about $.25 US. The driver drove the bus and a separate ticket taker with acrobatic balance collected cash fares and gave change.
Safe and clean? Yes.
Reliable? I have no idea ... and it didn’t matter because the buses came every few minutes. It was just show and go! The only thing faster was the motorbikes that swarmed around us - as you can see in this video:
One tip: Remember to stick out your arm horizontally to let the bus driver know you want the bus to stop for you. Otherwise it will speed on by ... which we learned the hard way.
After wandering around District 1 and seeing the sites, we arrived at the new Saigon Metro, which is faster than cars, clean, and safe. The system is powered overhead, has platform doors, signage is user friendly, and there are lots of staff to answer questions. Just 14 stations so far. More to come.
Just a few startup hiccups around ticketing - ticket vending machines are not yet operating, so customers buy tickets from ticket windows for now.
Next stop, Tokyo: After a red eye from Saigon, tired and hauling too much luggage we ventured out into the vast world of Tokyo transit this morning. On one hand, transit is ubiquitous and time competitive. On the other hand, it is a complex set of overlapping systems and payment methods.
We took the KS SkyLiner from Narita airport and transferred to the JR Yamanote line to get to our Airbnb. Each required a separate fare. The SkyLiner was an express service, comfortable, and luggage-friendly. We mistakenly sat in the premium car and the conductor was nice enough to let us stay. One nice touch - elegantly designed shades to block out the morning sun:
The second leg on the JR Yamanote line started off with my wife’s ticket getting stuck in the faregate - which the station agent remedied with some good, old fashioned fingertip maintenance. When we boarded the train, locals swarmed around us and took the priority seats, oblivious to our condition. That was just like home!
The ride itself was quick. After we got off, we tried to follow exit signs, hauling our heavy luggage up and down stairs only to arrive at a place with NO EXIT signs shouting at us from all directions. The only option was to another train platform which did eventually dump us out onto the street. From there it was a 12-minute walk to our Airbnb. On a normal day it would have been easy but in our jet lagged state the mild hills felt like a climb up Mt Fuji. All in all it was a mixed day for transit CX.
Let me pause the travelog to say a few words about Tokyo fares. There are lots of choices to make - should I buy a Japan Rail Pass for unlimited travel including many high-speed trains that take you from Tokyo to other cities? Should I buy a local pass that is valid on some (but not all) of the local lines? Or should I buy a pay-as-you-go card? It took many visits to Reddit to figure things out. One thing to know: the various pay-as-you-go cards function the same. So don't spend a lot of time studying whether to buy a Suica, a Pismo, or one of the many other cards. I'm sure there's some explanation for this state of affairs, but for me it was just plain confusing. Once I decided on a card, I went to this machine to buy one for my wife:
Warning: these machines are not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, there was a station agent in the booth who was kind enough to help me when I asked.
Back at the Airbnb I decided to try a different approach to buy a card for myself. I went to the Wallet app on my iPhone, pressed the + button, and it let me load a Suica card right there. Start to finish: about 15 seconds. For the rest of my trip I was all set! The nice part about using the Wallet app is that it kept a record of all my Suica taps and what stations I used. So when it came time to write my travelog each day, I was able to reconstruct all of the trips I took. On any given day in Tokyo I usually took the train 10-15 times. Train stations are ubiquitous there. Every few blocks there's another one!
The next day we went to Kamakura to see the giant Buddha and temples.
This trip gives us a fuller sense of the coverage and breadth of the Tokyo train system. We traversed seven different Tokyo train and bus routes in all.
I was sorry to see the large gaps between many Tokyo trains and platforms, far exceeding US standards and making it hard for people who use wheelchairs to traverse the system:
The following day we take the Shinkansen bullet train to the seaside town of Atami. Top speed 175 mph! Comfortable recliner seats. Free WiFi was generally good although spotty in the tunnels.
One interesting tidbit - the platform doors on the Shinkansen platforms are set back about 6 feet from the platform edge. I assume this is because when the Shinkansen express trains skip a stop they come through at high speed and push a lot of air?
Awaiting us in Atami - beautiful plum blossoms, traditional Japanese gardens, and scrumptious seafood!
A few more interesting tidbits about Tokyo Transit:
Stations and trains can get extremely crowded, even on Sundays! The Tokyo Metro subway system carries over 6 million rides per day. This is more than double the number of rides on the New York City subway.
With this level of crowding, when a lot of people off-board at a station, exit stairwells can clog up quickly. Fortunately, a disproportionate width of stairs is set aside for exiting to accommodate that dynamic - notice the up and down arrows on the stairs and the stanchions to separate up from down.
What do you think about this chart format for delay advisories displayed on Tokyo trains? Is it easier or harder to read than say a full sentence describing the delay? I found these very helpful, and appreciated the English translations!
OK, that's it for my travelog. I'm back home now, happy to sleep in my own bed, after a month traveling in Asia and going to an APTA conference. The month away from home was not easy, but it left me with indelible images in my mind that will inform my transit customer experience work for years to come. For that I am very appreciative!