The old railway line which is the most important way of passenger and freight transport in Japan, since they were established in the late nineteenth century.Government policies promoted train due to lack of fossil fuels and dependence on imports is almost complete. Land in the countryside near big cities with private companies acquired cheap train as early as the late nineteenth century, and then became the backbone for urban transport, formed around the suburban railway station radiating out of the metropolitan area, similar to the growth of suburbs around highways in other countries.
Although this plan, continue to grow making use of rival railroad transportation since the 1960s. The relative share of total rail passenger kilometers fell from 66.7 percent in 1965 to 42 percent in 1978, and 29.8 percent in 1990. Conversely, cars and domestic flights carrying stock is always greater than the passenger traffic in 1990, but still accounted for railway largest percentage so far in the OECD.
