Privacy & terms

What the site stores in your browser.

Your settings, recently opened stations, Daily line quiz progress and a saved copy of the service status are kept in your browser so they survive a reload, and never leave it. Your language is also kept in a cookie, and visitors in the EU, the EEA and the UK get a one-day region cookie so the site knows to ask before loading the map.

Site usage and performance.

We use Google Analytics to count page views, station views, journey-planner use and loading times, so we can improve the site. Google receives browser and device details, approximate location and these events, but never your contact messages, email address or search text. We do not use this data for advertising or cross-site profiling.

Analytics sets the cookies _ga and _ga_* for up to 180 days, and your Analytics choice is remembered in your browser for 180 days. Google keeps event data for 2 months and user data for 14 months, not extended by later visits; most aggregated reports are not covered by these limits.

In the US, Analytics runs with a notice and can be turned off. Elsewhere, or when the region is unknown, it waits for your consent. Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track turn it off. You can change your choice at any time in Privacy choices; declining does not affect the map or articles.

Google may process data in the United States and other countries. How Google uses information from partner sites.

Privacy choices

Third parties that serve parts of the page.

Google Maps

Draws the base map. Loading it sends your IP address and browser details to Google, and your use of the map is subject to the Google Maps End User Additional Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy. Visitors in the EU, the EEA and the UK are asked before it loads.

Cloudflare

Hosts the site, keeps ordinary server logs and counts page views with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies.

Wikimedia Commons

Serves station photographs; loading one sends your IP address to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Japan Rail Atlas (japanrailatlas.com) shows a live, timetable-based map of trains in Japan and an encyclopedia of the lines, trains, operators and rolling stock behind them. By using the site you accept these terms.

1. What the map shows

Train positions are calculated from published timetables. We work out where each train should be at the current time in Japan and draw it there. The site does not track real vehicles.

A train shown on the map is a scheduled service, not a confirmed physical train, and it may be early, late, cancelled, or made up of different carriages from the ones described. Lines for which we have no timetable show no trains.

2. No guarantee, no reliance

The site is provided as is, for information and interest. We make no promise that any timetable, position, route, station detail or article is complete, current or correct.

Do not rely on the site to catch a train, plan a connection you cannot afford to miss, or make any decision where an error could cause harm or loss. Always check the railway operator's own information. To the extent the law allows, we accept no liability for loss arising from use of the site.

3. Corrections

If you find an error, tell us through the Contact page.

4. Where the data comes from, and its licences

Train schedules

From the railway operators' own published timetables and operator-published open-data feeds. They remain the operators' data and are used here to compute positions; the operators do not endorse this site.

The rail network

Line shapes and station locations come from Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism National Land Numerical Information, and from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database Licence).

The map tiles

Provided by Google Maps. Your use of Google Maps features on this site is subject to the Google Maps End User Additional Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.

Articles

Line, train, operator, rolling-stock and station texts are written by us from the English and Japanese Wikipedia and from Wikidata. Each article lists its sources.

Photographs

Freely licensed (public domain or Creative Commons), with the photographer and licence credited on the page.

5. Licence for our text

The article text on this site is offered under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (CC BY-SA 4.0), the same licence as the Wikipedia material it draws on. You may copy and adapt it if you credit “Japan Rail Atlas” with a link to the page and share your version under the same licence. The calculated train positions, the site's code and its design are not covered by that licence.

6. Using the site

Please do not scrape the site or its data files at a rate that burdens it, present its output as an official operator service, or remove source credits from copied text.

7. Privacy

How the site uses analytics, Google Maps and browser storage is described in the Privacy policy.

8. Changes

We may change these terms; the date at the top is the version in force.