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Ride shares aren’t a thing in Japan and most people can’t afford blowing hundreds of dollars on a super long taxi ride - for reference from where I live to there, the dominant taxi app here estimates 40,000 yen in the day time, which is more expensive at night due to increased late night rates. Plus Otsuki is in the middle of nowhere - I presume there are taxi drivers looking to capitalize on this, but there may not be many of them so far from a major area.

These train lines are very long, so you might be quite far away from where you were actually intending to go.

Interesting that rates are higher at night. Most cities I've been in its the opposite due to there being much less traffic at night.

It's less of a traffic thing than a supply/demand thing. People mostly want to sleep at night.

A taxi from Otsuki (the station mentioned in the article) to even Hachioji (another station that's famous for being "the last stop") would take over an hour and cost >20,000JPY. At that point it's cheaper to get a hotel. Even if you have the money, the possibility of taxis just not being available at that time in a place like Otsuki is pretty high.

I submit to you the hypothesis that some people are poor.