Foundation: 1987
Headquarters: Nagoya City, Aichi
President: Shin Kameko
Executive Summary: Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central) is the main railway company operating in the Chubu region of Japan. Between its foundation in 1987 and the early 2000s, several companies were consolidated under JR Central, including JR Tokai Bus Company, JR Tokai Takashimaya, JR Central Building, and JR Tokai Real Estate. The JR Central Group currently has subsidiaries extending across at least ten sectors, including transportation, merchandise, construction, information systems, hotels and resorts, travel, publishing, rolling stock, maintenance, and real estate. In 1991, the company took over the Tokaido Shinkansen, the nation’s premier bullet train line. One year later, the Nozomi Series 300, with a top speed of 270 kilometers per hour, began commercial operations. In 1997, JR Central listed on the Nagoya, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto stock exchanges. In 2006, an Automatic Train Control system was introduced. In 2011, JR Central was authorized to build and operate the Chuo Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka, a super-speed maglev train currently under construction. The company now operates about 2,000 kilometers of railway and over four hundred train stations. Prior to the Covid pandemic, JR Central reached annual passenger numbers of up to 175 million people and had over 18,000 employees. Its annual income is in the range of US$15 billion.
