26-04-2025
Avoid the usual Golden Week traffic hassles by taking the ferry
Golden Week kicked off April 26 and millions of Japanese were on the move even though only a two-day weekend was in the immediate offing.
Still, Shinkansen bullet trains were expected to run at full capacity toward the end of the holiday season because of four consecutive days off from May 3.
As of April 9, the percentage of reserved seats ranged from between 93 percent and overbooking at 109 percent compared to the same time last year.
'We thought there would be a drop in reservations, seeing as there are fewer consecutive holidays this year,' said an official with East Japan Railway Co. 'One would have thought that people would not want to travel great distances in such circumstances, so we were surprised that reservations reached the levels of normal years.'
The Nozomi runs of the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen lines linking Tokyo to as far west as Hakata in Kyushu will operate only with reserved seat bookings between April 25 and May 6.
Reservations on international flights over Golden Week were higher than last year.
Domestically, about 2.29 million airline seats were reserved for group companies of Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways. For international flights, there were about 550,000 reservations, about a 10 percent increase over last year.
Traffic snarls on expressways will be unavoidable during the latter half of Golden Week if past holiday periods are anything to go by.
East Nippon Expressway Co. and NTT Docomo Inc. are collaborating on a project to use artificial intelligence to improve traffic forecasts to help drivers avoid holdups on major expressways. The forecasts for 2 p.m. and beyond on any given day will be based on traffic flow as of noon.
Kentaro Wada, an associate professor of traffic engineering at the University of Tsukuba, noted that logjams stretching dozens of kilometers can take several hours to dissipate if the traffic on an expressway exceeds capacity by 20 to 30 percent over a two-hour period.
Reducing the number of vehicles on certain stretches is the only way to alleviate congestion during peak periods, Wada said.
Travel journalist Kazuko Murata said she is seeing signs that more people want to stay at home this year due to concerns about rising consumer prices.
She also offered some tips: For those traveling domestically, it would be better to avoid the major tourist destinations often besieged by foreign travelers, such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Mount Fuji.
Murata said ferries remain a hidden gem of domestic travel, especially overnight trips in which the destination is reached the next morning. These long ferry trips offer the twin benefits of saving on a night's accommodation and allowing the passenger to begin sightseeing as soon as they arrive.
While many people may still hold the image of ferries as having large tatami mat rooms where everyone lies around together, she noted there is now greater privacy with the use of curtains. Some ferries also provide private rooms and beds at an additional cost.
(This article was written by Ryuta Sometaya, Jin Hirakawa, Wataru Netsu and Yoichiro Kodera.)
