"RAILWAYS AND SUSTAINABILITY" (JR EAST)

JFS Newsletter No.16 (December 2003)
"TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE JAPAN - CORPORATIONS AT WORK" ARTICLE SERIES Article No. 8
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/index.html
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/environment/index.html (Sustainability Report)

Railways--An Essential Part of Life in Tokyo

If you ever visited or lived in Tokyo, chances are that you used the railway. Motor vehicles provide mobility in modern cities, but here in Tokyo, from commuting to shopping, railways are an essential part of people's daily lives. In fact, the rate of railway use in Japan is much higher than in the U.K. and France, other countries where railway systems are also highly developed.

JR East is a railway company that represents about 30 percent of all passenger railway transportation in Japan. Being the largest passenger railway company in the world, it alone provides nearly half of the huge volume of railway transportation in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and operates a five-route Shinkansen (Bullet Train) network between Tokyo and major cities in eastern Honshu (mainland). About 71,000 employees work for the company, and its revenues in fiscal 2002 were 2.5 trillion yen (about U.S.$22 billion), providing an operating profit of 340 billion yen (about U.S.$3 billion).

Passengers, CO2 Emissions, and Waste

The mammoth size of JR East is simply a reflection of the huge demand for transportation. The region covered by JR East has about 59 million residents, of which 16 million are using JR East trains daily. The population of the Tokyo metropolitan area is about 12 million, and 16 million is on the scale of megacities like Cairo, Mexico City and Shanghai. JR East could therefore be considered to be virtually moving an entire megacity every single day! Measured in passenger-kilometers (number of passengers multiplied by kilometers each passenger moved), the company provides three times the passenger transportation services of the entire U.K. train system, two times more than France's system, and thirteen times more than the U.S. system.

Railways today are attracting attention as public transportation systems that can play an important role in sustainable societies. This is because they are efficient. For trains, CO2 emissions from the fuel and electricity consumed to transport one person one kilometer are approximately one-tenth the emissions of automobiles and one-fifth the emissions of buses. Nevertheless, by serving 16 million customers daily, JR East consumes a large amount of energy and emits a considerable amount of CO2 and waste. In providing its services in fiscal 2002, the company emitted 2.32 million tons-CO2 (equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of a city of one million people) and collected 50,000 tons of waste (equivalent to the annual household waste of a city of about 100,000) disposed by customers at stations and in trains.

Railways are relatively better for the environment than cars and buses, but challenges still remain. What can a railway company do to play an active part in growing a sustainable society? And what insights can JR East share with countries and regions that are planning to introduce railways? In this newsletter, we would like to address these questions by looking at JR East's initiatives.

Railcars: Energy-Efficiency, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Power

First, let's look at CO2 emissions from rail operations. What can be done to cut energy consumption and the CO2 emissions that equal those of a megacity? In responding to this challenge, JR East has set a target of cutting its CO2 emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by the end of fiscal 2005. Today the company is working on replacing conventional railcars with energy-efficient railcars, as well as on reducing the environmental impacts generated during electricity production.

How important is it to make energy-efficient railcars? Very important, given that 72 percent of total energy consumed at JR East is for electricity used to run the trains. Facing this challenge, the company has developed various technologies to reduce weight, by redesigning railcar design and using stainless steel instead of iron when possible, and also to harness energy by generating electricity during braking.

As a result, new energy-efficient railcar models cut electricity consumption by 34 percent, and as much as 53 percent, compared with conventional models. As of the end of fiscal 2002, the energy-efficient railcars accounted for 68 percent of the company's rolling stock of 12,000 railcars (compared to 51 percent in fiscal 1998). But not satisfied with this incremental improvement, the company has been exploring more dramatic ways to reduce operational energy use through the development of the world's first hybrid railcars. After two years of research and development, the company has developed the "NE Train" (New Energy Train), which has been on test runs since May 2003.
World's First Hybrid Rail Car Developed

JR East sees this as a first step toward developing fuel cell-powered trains.

Improving Efficiency of Electricity Generation and Introducing Renewable Energy

Another effective way of cutting CO2 emissions from operations is by reducing the environmental impacts of electricity generation. The company obtains more than half of its electricity from its own thermal (33 percent) and hydropower plants (23 percent), and the rest is purchased from electric utilities (44 percent). In addition to improving energy efficiency at its own plants, the company tries to minimize excess electrical generation by using a centralized load dispatching command facility that controls the total amount of electricity generated and the transmission network. Recently the company has also been exploring renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, and has installed solar panels on the rooftops of some Shinkansen platforms.

The results of these initiatives can be seen in the numbers. In fiscal 2002, the company's total CO2 emissions were 16 percent below 1990 levels and energy consumption for train operation per car-kilometer was down by 10 percent. One of the company's environmental management indicators (CO2 emissions divided by operating profits) had improved from 945 t-CO2/100 million yen of operating profits (fiscal 1990) to 770 t-CO2/100 million yen.

Waste Reduction and Recycling

Another critical issue a railway company must address is the large volume of garbage discarded by customers on trains or at stations, including newspapers, magazines, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and so forth. Approximately 50,000 tons of garbage are discarded by customers every year--this is equal to the average annual volume of household waste generated by 130,000 people in Japan. In addressing this challenge, JR East has set a target of a recycling rate of 40 percent by fiscal 2005.

To achieve this target, the company has been placing five kinds of labeled refuse bins throughout stations and on trains in the Tokyo metropolitan area. It then collects, sorts, and compresses the refuse at recycling centers (three locations), and sends the compressed refuse to recycling contractors. Plastic bottles (made of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET) are recycled into packaging, such as egg containers, and newspaper and magazines into copy paper for use at the company offices. Through these efforts, the company has reduced its waste volume from 59,000 tons to 50,000 tons and improved the recycling rate from 31 to 37 percent (both from fiscal 1998 to 2002). To achieve the 40 percent target for fiscal 2005, further efforts are now being planned.

Also in fiscal 2002, 99.9 percent of discarded train tickets were recycled into business cards, card board, toilet paper for stations and offices, and other items. The company has also introduced "ticketless" technologies to reduce the overall amount of waste from tickets, and as of June 2003, 6.6 million passengers were using Suica, IC cards, greatly reducing the volume of discarded train passes.

Exerting Megacity Influence in a Positive Way

Few transportation services in the world come close to the mega-size status of JR East, when you consider the 16 million people served every day. JR East has the potential to influence behavior patterns, in megacity proportions. Not only JR East, but any service in any country or region that operates railways and provides benefits to passengers has the potential to exert a positive influence. Be it cutting CO2 emissions, or separating and reducing waste, the services and infrastructure of railway companies should play a pivotal role in the efforts of whole societies to pursue environmental solutions.