The Japanese are in for a big TfL culture shock

Nothing can prepare the good people from Tokyo Metro – who are coming to London to run the Elizabeth Line – from the culture shock they will undoubtedly suffer here. Japan, as we all know, is a very different place and the way they operate their transport system is very different to how business is conducted here. To make it even harder for those plucky Japanese managers to adapt, the key difference is one that can only be felt rather than seen – the utter divergence in the business ethos of the two nations. Nowhere is that better expressed than in their respective railway networks.

For a start, Tokyo Metro is not, unlike Transport for London, responsible for all the underground lines in the Japanese capital. Far from it. There are two different underground companies, with names that rather recall the old joke in Life of Brian about the two different Judean liberation organisations.