Sure, Tokyo has fancy digital signage, but Sapporo has a better old-school idea.

If you’ve ever stared in confusion at a Tokyo train map, you’ll know how complex the system is. Even for locals like our reporter Seiji Nakazawa, who’s lived in Japan’s capital for about 20 years, it can be easy to not quite know where you’re going, even when you’re inside a carriage, as the route isn’t always clearly displayed.

However, during a recent trip to Sapporo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, Seiji came across something on the the Sapporo Municipal Subway that totally impressed him. Instead of frantically scrambling for his phone like he usually does mid-route to find out where he was going, all he had to do was look up above the door of the carriage he was on.

“So? Trains in Tokyo have that feature too,” we hear you say. Well, Tokyo has something similar but they’re not an old-school retro-style permanent display. Instead, they’re brightly lit panels that switch displays constantly, and they often only show the next stop on the route.

▼ Not much help if you want to know how many more stops until your station.

Along the way, these panels might reveal more than the next station, but even then, the information is limited to around 10 stations if you’re lucky.

Seiji has made the mistake of hopping on the wrong train before, which is a huge inconvenience, so when he saw the display on the Sapporo subway train, he wanted to stand up and applaud enthusiastically.

This intuitive display is incredibly easy to understand, as it lists about 19 stations, and it’s a permanent feature so it’s displayed all the time. Best of all, it shows you where you are along the route by dimming the lights on the names of the stations you’ve passed, and keeping the lights for upcoming stations brightly lit.

With a system like this you don’t even need a phone on you to know where you’re going, as you can intuitively understand where you are at a glance. It’s a simple system that’s also useful for out-of-town visitors, as the names of the stations along the route are clearly displayed in Japanese and English.

▼ Incidentally, Sapporo’s Tozai Line also has an easy-to-understand permanent display.

In recent years, trains in Tokyo have been showing commercials and videos on their in-car displays, but to Seiji, this is an unwanted evolution. Although he does sometimes watch the so-called “Train TV” on board, he prefers to know where he’s going instead.

It just goes to show that sometimes, old-school methods are best, and Seiji now has his fingers crossed for Tokyo trains to turn back the clock and adopt Sapporo’s methods instead.

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[ Read in Japanese ]