How to Check the First and Last Bus - Times That Shift with the Day of the Week

Start with the schedule that applies on the day you travel

When looking up the first and last bus, the single most important step comes before you check what time it departs: confirm which schedule the day runs on. At the same stop on the same route, it is far from rare for the first and last bus times to differ substantially between weekdays and Saturdays or holidays. Heading out on a holiday with your weekday instincts intact, then finding that "the bus is not coming at the time it always does" or that "the last bus has already gone", is exactly the sort of mix-up that happens when the type of schedule is overlooked.

This article works through what the first and last bus actually mean, how to look them up reliably, what to watch for on each type of day, and practical tips for catching the last bus. If you depend on buses for an early commute or the trip home at night, it is worth fixing this checking routine in your mind once and for all.

What the first and last bus mean

The first bus is the earliest trip operated on a given route that day. One thing to be careful about is that the Japanese word 始発 (shihatsu) has a second meaning alongside "the first trip of the day": it also refers to the stop where a route originates, the 始発停留所 or originating stop. So when someone says they will ride "from the shihatsu", whether they mean the very first trip of the morning or boarding at the originating stop depends on the context. When you arrange to meet somebody, make sure the two of you are not taking the word in different senses.

The last bus, meanwhile, is the final trip operated that day; in Japanese it is also called the 最終バス (saishū basu) or 最終便 (saishūbin), the final service. There are two things worth knowing about the last bus.

• The time printed in the timetable is the time the bus departs that particular stop. Once the last bus has left the originating stop, it reaches each successive stop along the way at a correspondingly later time.
• On some routes, the final few trips do not run all the way to the terminus but are short-turn trips, known in Japanese as 途中止まり. On some routes the number of trips terminating at a stop with an operating office or depot increases during the evening, so unless you check the destination as well as the time, you may be put off the bus short of where you are going.

In other words, the real last bus for you is "the last trip of the day, among those that go from your stop to your destination". The bottom entry in the timetable column does not necessarily qualify, and that is the single most important caution in this article.

Reliable ways to look up the first and last bus

You can confirm first and last bus times in the following ways.

1. Read the timetable posted at the stop - the trip written at the very top of the timetable is the first bus, and the one at the very bottom is the last. Columns are separated for weekdays, Saturdays and holidays, so always check that you are looking at the column for the day you are traveling.
2. Look it up on the operator's official website - for Toei buses, you can check timetables by stop and by route on the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation's Toei Bus Service Information site. The advantage is that you can do it at home before you set off.
3. Ask the operator's information desk - if the posted notice or the screen is hard to read, you can also confirm the times through an information desk, by telephone for example.

Another point to watch is that even at stops sharing the same name, boarding points are divided by direction and by route, and each boarding point has its own timetable. The boarding point for your return trip is not necessarily the one opposite the point where you boarded on the way out, so when you look up the last bus home, be sure to read the timetable for the boarding point you will actually use on the way back. How to read a timetable itself is explained in detail in how to read a bus timetable.

If you are connecting to a train, you need to look up the first and last services for both the bus and the train. Making the last bus is of no help if the train you need to connect to has already finished for the night. The basic approach is to plan around whichever leg of the journey finishes earliest.

Days of the week and schedule types

A bus route's schedule is in most cases divided by day of the week, as follows.

Alongside that, keep the following in mind.

• Public holidays are frequently operated on the holiday schedule regardless of which day of the week they fall on. Do not assume "it is a Monday, so it must be the weekday schedule".
• Over the new year period and during the Obon season, services may run on a special schedule that differs from the usual one.
• Some operators and some routes do not separate Saturdays from holidays and run the same schedule for both. Reading the categories exactly as posted is the reliable approach.
• Schedules are revised from time to time. Around a revision, the times you had memorized may well have changed, so check again on the notice at the stop or on the official website.

The first bus deserves care on holidays too. Under the holiday schedule, morning trips are thinned out, and there may be no bus at a time when you could have caught one on a weekday. When you are heading to the airport early on a day off, or need to make an appointment first thing in the morning, do not rely on your weekday memory; always confirm the first bus on that day's schedule.

Practical tips for using the last bus

The last bus is a trip with nothing behind it if you miss it. These tips will put you on safer ground.

• Work to the trip before it - rather than aiming for the last bus itself, plan your evening so that you make the trip before it, and you can still recover if something unexpectedly holds you up.
• Allow for delays caused by road conditions - because buses travel on the road, they can be held up by congestion or roadwork even at night. Assume it may not arrive exactly on schedule and head for the stop early.
• Check the boarding point and the destination - late at night there are few trips, and there is no second chance if you get the boarding point or the destination wrong. Make it a habit to check the destination sign before you board.
• Look up the last bus home before you go out - finding out the time of your last bus back before you even board the outbound bus makes it much easier to plan how long you can stay.

Note that, as of August 2026, Toei bus timetables and service information include a category for late-night buses, which are presented separately from ordinary trips. Fares on late-night buses may be handled differently from ordinary trips, so check the operator's information when you use one.

In summary: give it 30 seconds before you leave

Checking the first and last bus is straightforward if you think of it in three stages: confirm which type of schedule applies on the day you travel, look at the very top and the very bottom of that column, and check the destination and the boarding point as well. Thirty seconds of checking before you leave is what saves you from missing an early morning bus or being stranded late at night.

If you would like to know more about how to read the columns of a timetable, see how to read a bus timetable; if you want to go over the basic flow from boarding to getting off, see the guide to riding Toei buses.

Fares and charges given in this article reflect the information available at the time of writing and do not account for subsequent revisions.