I always wondered why they didn't just keep the trains running, even if only for a handful of runs overnight. Seems worth it to keep drunk salarymen from wandering around the streets until morning only to have to go back to work.
I have to imagine it might not be worth it though. The whole "city that never sleeps" vibe is relatively localized to a couple neighborhoods and having all lines run through the night would be a bit of an extravagance (all that for, what, the 5 hours they're not running?). Train drivers aren't cheap! And we invented technology for getting small groups of people home already, it's called taxis.
Post COVID I think there's been a huge push to just chill out even with the 24 hour stuff. Lots of places close earlier than they used to, and some places that used to be 24 hours just go until midnight now.
There was a bus that would go between a couple of the nightclub spots throughout the night, never took it though. Maybe there would be a decent business in running "commuter"-y buses throughout the night between certain areas, at least to try and get closer home.
So it actually makes sense to focus on efficiency and reliability at peak hours, at the cost of running it 24hours. Tokyos rail line are one of the few trains in the world that actually make profit (although not all of it from trains) and reliability is kinda key to this profit margin, especially at prime time. (Most major stations have malls and commercial activities in Japan. And those are run by the train companies, and surprisingly the majority of the profit for Train companies are not the trains but those activities. Those are not open past 22:00 in most places, so that's another reason)
Edit: Not just bike mentioned it on this video (timestamp) https://youtu.be/6dKiEY0UOtA?t=887
Also, it would almost definitely run at a loss (excluding externalities)... same reason why many Chinese cities' subsidised metros close quite early. Agreed that it's probably beneficial in the big picture but maybe hard to justify to superiors?
The more sensible option is generally night buses, which are considerably less expensive. The London Underground runs a limited night service on some lines on Friday and Saturday nights, but London has a fairly extensive night bus service.
More likely it's just for train maintenance, and indeed, 24-hour train operation is vanishingly rare, with NYC and Chicago the only well-known major cities with it. Tokyo does stand out by not even having night buses though. (It used to have a skeletal network, but even that was killed off by COVID.)
Yes, and at least NYC is notorious for how poorly it's train network is maintained, which I suspect is no coincidence.
Trains are good at bypassing traffic and carrying large numbers of people, but you don't need to worry about those things in the middle of the night, so a bus should work fine as substitute.
It's not only useful for people leaving a party, but workers on early or late shifts like cleaning out working in restaurants.
Example: Tokyo City View Hotel (Tabita station), rooms approximately 13 meters from tracks.
Irish Rail sometimes runs late services around Christmas and New Year, but have been fairly clear that it’s not sustainable, and even then there’s an hour or so gap where the tracks are cleared before normal service starts up around 05:30.
They literally have switches from the 1930s that are impossible to replace - they have machine shops that fabricate spare parts.