It is difficult for us to maintain these routes in the future. It is beyond the level that a private business is capable of.

Perhaps if the service was a bit better people would use the train more and the private car less.

Such is business. If you can't entice customers, they should downsize.

For all their pros, trains will never be as convenient as a car. Top that with yearly car improvements (navigation, safety, efficiency, etc), and trains will just continue to become less and less so.

JR Shikoku and JR Hokkaido are likely to both struggle to keep some of their routes economic unfortunately. Hopefully the eventual extension of the Shinkansen to Sapporo will help JR Hokkaido a bit.

Well, that's a bit scary.

I assume all the highways there are tolled, like in the rest of Japan.

The tolls in Hokkaido should be lifted and money-losing rail services shut down. Cars are much more convenient for intercity and rural travel than trains in a wide open place like Hokkaido, so it's unfair to just keep on financially punishing motorists.

I sometimes travel to places where there's only one train every ninety minutes, and a one hour meeting effectively consumes a whole day. This is both symptomatic of and further drives urbanization.

On many levels I agree with JeffLee's proposal on lifting highway tolls. Yet this would require local fuel surcharges (unpopular with the Landcruiser brigade) or other, less accurately targeted taxes to pay for their upkeep in icy Hokkaido.

Autonomous vehicles would be a cost-effective and flexible replacement for less profitable train services in Hokkaido and elsewhere facing rural attrition: an ideal opportunity for the Ministries (for thus is it ordained) and Japan Inc.