Tokyo Metro 'Search for Routes with Seats' and 'Car Guide for Easier Seating' Linked with NAVITIME

From March 30, Tokyo Metro will add 'seat-available route search' and 'seat-friendly car guidance' to the paid Transfer NAVITIME app, aiming to deploy Japan's first full-scale 'seat-availability visualization.'

Traditional route searches prioritized fastest arrival, fewest transfers, and lowest fare; the new service focuses on alternative routes that increase the chance of sitting.

If waiting one train or taking a local instead of an express makes sitting more likely, those routes will be added to search results as suggestions.

During an about 1.5-year trial they collected roughly 3,800 responses, validated seat-probability accuracy, and achieved high-precision seat probability predictions.

Features include four displays—expected minutes you can sit (bar display; available to free members), added longer-seat route suggestions, seat-friendly car indication in detail view, and per-stop seat-probability; these appear when a route includes Tokyo Metro lines, with plans to expand to other lines and a new AI image-recognition method that gathers vehicle data without vehicle modification.