02 June 2021 (Wednesday) – Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 3 (of 3): Bus services struggling amid covid

[I don’ t want to spend a whole heap of time on this. This will just be a rough sketch. ]

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A survey of bus use for April 2020 vs. April 2019 found that town bus use has dropped 24.4% and expressway bus use has fallen 59.1%

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This bus service brings commuters from Yamagata to work in Sendai in Miyagi.

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Before covid19, it had 1.7 million passengers annually.

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Last year, this had fallen to 800,000 passengers, or less than half a usual year.

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Reasons for the drop include people’s misgivings about traveling across prefectural borders.

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Woman who uses the bus to go to Sendai for university:
“I think the inside of a bus is a confined space.”

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“I can’t help thinking that sharing the same air with so many people is high risk.”

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“But taking the bus is really my only way of getting to uni. So I ride the bus and try to take some kind of precautions.”

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[To avoid those risks,] more and more people are making their journeys by family car.

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This bus route has reduced the number of services it runs on weekdays by 10%.

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[Local bus services are nowhere near as lucrative as long-distance routes.]

“[If the situation continues like this,] we won’t be able to fulfil our role of providing public transport for the region.”

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Last year, the company was in the red to the tune of 10 million yollars.

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[They’ve done stuff like ThorPreMe. Pictured here is a thing that allows them to keep the window open for ventilation even when it’s raining.]

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The president is aiming to get the company to survive by changing from being a bus company to being a multifaceted business with transport at its core.

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For example, it could take some of the land it uses to park its buses, build and rent out shops and houses on them, and then provide bus services that bring people to work, home and the shops.