Rush hour typically ranges from 7:00 to 10:00 a.m. and can look like people standing sholder to shoulder, really squeezed together. If you're lucky, you can get a seat, and then it's not too bad, but you have to get lucky first. To reduce congestion, trains run about twice as often during rush hours, every four to six minutes instead of every ten.
Trains were the first kind of modern transportation brought to Japan by the British. They were built up over the course of years and designed around the existing cities, and they became the main form of transportation well before the arrival of cars. Although the use of cars has grown, and despite the presence of roads, cars remain less popular than the older and more environmentally friendly train system.
