Timetables as Publications Supporting Outings At the beginning of the lecture, Hiroyuki Morisaki, President and CEO of JTB Publishing, said, “The root of the JTB publishing business is to be a catalyst for excitement and action. When traveling, information about destinations and the “legs” to get there is essential. Therefore, the company has been involved in publications such as timetables and guidebooks. The predecessor of JTB was the Japan Transport Bureau, which was established in 1963, and further back to the Japan Tourist Bureau, which was established in 1912. In 1925, the Japan Transportation Culture Association, which had been working on the magazine “Tabi” (Travel), moved to the bureau and produced the “Train Time Table”. After the establishment of the Japan Transport Authority (JTC), it became the “JTC Timetable supervised by Japan National Railways (JNR). With the inauguration of the JR Group in April 1987, the term “supervised by Japan National Railways” was dropped and the name was changed to “Kotsu Kosha no Timetable,” then to “JTB Timetable,” and so on up to the present. Incidentally, “JR Timetable,” which appeared after the establishment of the JR Group, is published by Kotsu Shimbunsha (formerly Kosai Shuppansha), and the two companies are rivals, so to speak. In recent years, with the proliferation of transfer information websites and other tools, some people may think that paper timetables are no longer necessary. However, if you just want to get from point A to point B quickly and inexpensively, a transfer guide site will suffice, but when it comes to comparing various itineraries, a paper timetable has the advantage of providing a bird’s-eye view of the entire journey. Current editor-in-chief Mirei Kajiwara says, “I think the necessity of a paper timetable lies in the fact that it is not only the shortest and cheapest, but also provides other information. We want to make travel as wonderful as possible from this point of view. The January 2026 issue of the JTB timetable, to be released on December 19, will mark its 1,200th issue. Therefore, Eiji Mitooka was chosen to illustrate the cover of the magazine, as he did for the 1000th issue in 2009. The car depicted is based on an image originally submitted for JR Kyushu’s “Nanatsuboshi” cruise train, which was rejected, and was remade lively with children and animals at the request of editor-in-chief Kajiwara. As shown in the photo at the beginning of this issue, the “JTB Timetable” logo was also changed to a new one. This was also created by Mr. Mitooka. He says that his intention was to “evolve the timetable because we want a new timetable for the next generation.
Various difficulties related to timetable revision The next subject is “timetable revision. The JR Group usually revises its timetable from the middle to the latter half of March every year, but there are also quite a few minor revisions in addition to that, and extra trains change seasonally. In addition, some private railways revise their timetables at different times. Therefore, the timetable changes in some way every month. The timetable revision information is sent to the editorial department from the railroad companies, but surprisingly, it is not in digital data, but “basically on paper,” according to the company. Moreover, for a large organization like the JR Group, the “new revised timetable” does not just arrive in a single package and that is the end of it; it is revised and corrected one after another. It is a simple-minded person who thinks that we should wait until the finalization of the schedule. If that is the case, the editing process will not be completed in time, according to the company. When the JR Group has a timetable revision in March, “the peak of work related to the revision is around December of the previous year,” says Mr. Takayama. In addition to changes in arrival and departure times, new stations may open, existing stations may be closed, new lines may open, some lines may be closed, and trains may be increased or reduced. Sometimes station names are changed and lengthened. Therefore, it is not possible to simply change only the numbers of time in the same space and be done with it. It also affects the layout of the magazine. If there is a large increase in the number of trains, the number of pages will be insufficient, and additional space will have to be found by devising various ways of doing things. The staff in charge of the magazine is said to be very busy checking and confirming whether the increase or decrease in the number of stations or the number of trains will affect the page layout. Incidentally, the number of pages cannot be increased easily. Third-class postal items such as timetables must be kept within 1 kg in weight. The station names also affect the index map at the beginning of the book. Mr. Ishino said, “What we could not do when I was editor-in-chief was to include all the names of stations of private railways in the index map. This was achieved under the editors-in-chief, Mr. Ouchi, who said, “Station names increase and change, so it is difficult to keep up with the changes. Moreover, recently the number of long station names has increased,” he continued. This is because there is an increase in the number of compound station names that combine multiple place names, and there are also situations where long station names are intentionally added to create a topic of conversation.
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