Come Hell or High Fever: Readying the World's Megacities for Disaster

Abstract

tsunami-ship/ index.html.25 Statistics regarding rail ridership to, from and within the megacity of Tokyo are inconsistent and difficult to compare. This is in large part attributable to statistics varying in terms of what parts of the urban area they measure, the large number of private and public rail companies serving those various parts, differing years for which data are collected and contrasting ways of measuring usage-for example, whether a single trip commuting to the office is counted once or multiple times if it involves transfers. Daily ridership estimates range from roughly 8 million to more than 12 million, with estimations of annual ridership similarly ranging from between 4 and 5 billion (for only two primary rail companies) to nearly 15 billion. The 14 billion-plus number for Tokyo's annual ridership comes from a source that could not be independently substantiated. However, the following provides a 2013 value of more than 9.6 billion: Statistics Japan, 'Railway passenger transport', Prefecture Comparisons, Tokyo: Statistics Japan, 2010, [Updated 2022], available from: stats-japan.com/t/kiji/10796. Given other sources reflecting a significant increase in Tokyo's rail ridership over recent years, the 14 billion estimate seems reasonable. A very small sample of additional sources addressing the topic includes Ramon Brasser, 'Tokyo's rush hour by the numbers', ELSI Blog, Tokyo: Earth-

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