Where to stop express trains: Paris vs Tokyo

[IST]

I found an interesting article about the stopping patterns in case of express trains in Tokyo and in Paris:

 

http://www.citymetric.com/transport/paris-vs-tokyo-two-different-models-express-commuter-rail-stopping-patterns-2834

 

[railsquid]

Hmm, interesting article but generalises a bit...

 

First, some regional rail systems run express trains, whereas others are all local. The Munich and Berlin S-Bahns only have local trains.

Cities anywhere might even find that the German approach of not having any express trains works best. This means that planners should consider all stopping patterns, and not just default to what is familiar from nearby cities.

 

In Berlin at least the Regionalbahn provides express services through the centre of Berlin.

[bikkuri bahn]

Yes, it is risky to generalize about railway operations, especially wrt to Japan, as there are almost always exceptions given the richly complicated operating environment.  As far as stopping patterns, there are services in Japan that make numerous stops in certain sections while running as expresses elsewhere, typically called "kukan kyuko" or "kukan kaisoku", or even "tsuukin junkyu", though the local running is done in the outer suburbs, rather than in the inner suburbs/city center.  What is overlooked in this article are the numerous run-through operations between the private railways and Tokyo metro, which function in the same manner as the Paris RER.

[kvp]

The 4th approach is zoning trains that are local on the outer suburban section and express in the inner city, usually going to a major terminus and only stopping at transportation hubs. This allows mixing these low frequency longer distance commuter trains into the dense local sbahn traffic. (along with regular intercity traffic) The changeover point is usually at the outer end of the sbahn route.