Which company owns that green bus? A bus often seen in Umeda is to be discontinued. Umeda, Osaka is a fairly large area, and moving from one end to the other requires walking for nearly 20 minutes in some places. The “UMEGLE-BUS,” a circulation bus that has been running in such an area for more than 10 years since 2013, will be discontinued after its final service on December 31, 2025. This UMEGLE-BUS starts from the first floor platform of Hankyu Corporation’s Osaka Umeda Station, and circles around Chayamachi Applause, Saiseikai Nakatsu Hospital, Grand Front Osaka, JR Osaka Station, JR Kitashinchi Station, and Hanshin Osaka Umeda Station, returning in 27 minutes per lap along a 4 km course. The Umeguru Bus, which was responsible for moving around the “too large Umeda,” was thoroughly marketed before the route was launched, and when it first opened, the number of users was said to be “three times as many as expected. Many bus companies around the country looked up to the Umekuru Bus as a successful example, and there was even a time when the bus was hailed as an “honor student” of bus routes operated independently by citizens’ groups. Why was the bus service discontinued in a little more than 10 years? Let us trace the history of the disappearing Umeguru bus while walking along its route and considering the “inevitable causes” that drove its users away.
Sliding through the “Umeda Dungeon! A Surprisingly Convenient Route The Umeguru Bus, a new bus route, was opened by the Grand Front Osaka TMO, which is integrally responsible for the operation of the Grand Front Osaka commercial facility, which partially opened in April 2013. The Grand Front Osaka area, located quite far north in Umeda, was a vacant lot on the site of the former Umeda Freight Station, which covered an area of more than 10 hectares. Although the two buildings, 180 meters above ground, were directly connected by a promenade, they were still divided east-west by the remaining Umeda Freight Line, and even within the same Umeda area, it was quite difficult to find a route to Chayamachi on the east side and Nishi-Umeda Herbis Plaza on the southwest side. Even though they are in the same city, it is extremely inconvenient to travel short distances. To solve this problem, the Grand Front Osaka TMO came up with the idea of establishing a bus route connecting the area with the free buses in the Tokyo Station area “Daimaru-Yu (Otemachi, Marunouchi, Yurakucho)”. However, the area is undeveloped, with “only two buildings” and few companies willing to sponsor the project, so unlike Tokyo, the bus service could not be free. Unlike in Tokyo, it was impossible to make the bus service free of charge, and because profitability was considered hopeless, no bus company was interested in operating the bus service. Nevertheless, the Grand Front Osaka TMO did not give up, and the people in charge of the project walked around the Umeda area, not only the Grand Front, and thoroughly examined where to place bus stops to make the project more profitable. As a result of these diligent investigations, a rough draft of a circulation route was developed that would meet the demand of “people who go shopping in areas far from the center of the city” while also gradually capturing the travel demand of the entire Umeda area via the Grand Front, and Hankyu Bus was eventually involved as the operator. In a sense, Grand Front Osaka TMO and Hankyu Bus worked in unison to create a profitable bus route. It is precisely because of the thorough research and marketing conducted in advance that the Umeguru Bus has achieved such success and has been named as an “exemplary bus route” by many bus companies and local governments as a reference.
© Source travel watch