Tokyo bus etiquette: priority seats, phones, food, stop button

These are requests from the Bureau, not rules with penalties

If you are unsure how to conduct yourself on a Toei bus, the simplest guide is what the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation itself asks of passengers. As of September 2026 those requests come down to four things: switch your phone off near the priority seats, refrain from eating and drinking on board, when the bus is busy, do not stand still by the boarding door but move toward the back, and press the stop request button once your stop has been announced and get off through the rear door. Keep those four in mind and very little is left to puzzle over.

What matters is that these are requests, phrased as "please refrain" and "we ask for your cooperation", rather than rules enforced with penalties. Nor are they simply about being considerate. Each one comes with a published reason, whether the layout of the vehicle, the driver's field of view, or consideration for people who rely on medical devices. Starting from the reason is what lets you judge a situation for yourself, even on your first ride.

The sections below take each line of that table in turn and read it against the official wording. The mechanics of boarding and paying are set out in our guide to riding a Toei bus, so what follows concentrates not on the procedure but on how to behave once you are on board.

Phones: switch them off near the priority seats

On phones, Toei buses ask for two different things depending on where you are sitting or standing. The Bureau's guidance on manners asks passengers to set their phone to silent mode and to refrain from talking on it while on board, and then adds that near the priority seats on a Toei bus you should switch the phone off altogether. Away from the priority seats, in other words, silent mode plus no calls; near them, the power off.

The Bureau's etiquette page asks passengers to switch off near priority seats when it is crowded, and then adds that near the priority seats on Toei buses the power should be switched off. On the bus side there is no crowding condition. The reason for the difference is not explained officially (as of September 2026). The reason is stated plainly as well: the page on how to use the buses explains that it is so that passengers who use medical devices such as cardiac pacemakers can travel with peace of mind.

Because the request is to switch the power off, what is being asked near the priority seats is that the device be left alone, not merely that you avoid calls. Away from the priority seats there is no request to stop looking at your screen, as long as the phone is silenced. If an urgent call comes in, the response that matches the request is to let it go and ring back after you have got off rather than to take it on board.

Who the priority seats are for, and whether you may sit down

What the Bureau publishes about priority seats amounts to two things: that every vehicle has them, and a list of the people you are asked to give them up for. The list names elderly passengers, passengers with disabilities, passengers who are pregnant or traveling with an infant, and passengers wearing a Help Mark. The inclusion of the Help Mark reads as a request aimed at the cases where a glance is not enough to tell that someone needs consideration.

The question that comes up most often is whether you may sit in a priority seat when it is empty. The official request is to offer the seat, and there is no guidance saying that an empty priority seat must be left empty. The Bureau's English-language wording puts it as: if you are sitting in a seat with a priority seat mark, please offer it to the elderly, to passengers with disabilities, or to others in need of care. It helps to think of the seat as one where the question is not whether you sit, but what you do when someone who needs it appears.

Where the priority seats are, and how many of them each bus has, is not something the official pages set out (as of September 2026). The seats carry a priority seat mark, so the reliable approach is to look for that marking once you are on board. For how it feels on the receiving end of an offered seat, and for where to stand on a busy bus, our guide to using buses as an older passenger is worth a look as well.

Eating, drinking and smoking, and the reasons behind the requests

On eating and drinking, the Bureau's phrasing is that it asks passengers to refrain. That is a request rather than a rule with enforcement behind it, and what makes it useful is that the reasoning is spelled out. The frequently asked questions page gives two grounds: a drink spilled over a seat soils other passengers' clothing and puts the seat out of use, and smells drift through the cabin and can trouble the people around you.

Work backwards from those two reasons and you can draw the line yourself. Spreading out a boxed lunch on a seat plainly falls outside the spirit of the request, and any drink in an open container is best treated as something that will spill the moment the bus sways or brakes hard. As a general point of courtesy rather than official wording, keeping a drink to a covered container and a quick sip, and saving anything strongly scented until you are off the bus, covers most of it. If your health or your medication means you genuinely have to eat or drink on board, your own well-being comes before the request.

Smoking is handled differently. The Bureau treats vehicles, station premises and bus stops as no-smoking areas, and alongside that it asks passengers to refrain from using electronic cigarettes and similar products (as of September 2026). Because the stop itself is covered, you cannot smoke while you wait.

Moving down the bus matters because of the driver's view to the left

When a crowded bus asks you to move toward the back, the reason goes beyond making room for each other. In a notice issued at the end of March 2026, alongside a video on riding etiquette, the Bureau explains it like this: if passengers come to a halt near the boarding door when the bus is crowded, the view to the left from the driver's seat is obstructed, which is very dangerous, so for safety's sake it would help if people made room for one another and moved further in.

This is where a Toei bus differs from many others. Within the 23 wards you board at the front, which puts the boarding door immediately beside the driver's seat. Anyone standing still in that spot blocks the line of sight the driver needs to see to the left. Moving down the bus, in other words, is presented less as a courtesy between passengers than as something that bears directly on the safety of pedestrians and cyclists outside the vehicle.

It is tempting to think that staying near the front makes sense when your stop is coming up, but within the 23 wards you exit at the rear, so there is nothing to gain by hanging back at the front. Even with your stop close by, stepping in and waiting near the rear door involves less shuffling about. If you are standing, hold firmly onto a strap or a handrail, as the Bureau advises. It states plainly that having both hands taken up by your bags is dangerous, so it is worth carrying them in a way that leaves one hand free. Ways of dodging the crush in the first place are gathered in our piece on getting through a packed bus.

When to press the stop request button: the official wording is once your stop is announced

The thing that puzzles first-time passengers most is when to press the stop request button. The Bureau's guidance leaves little room for doubt: once the stop where you are getting off is announced on the in-vehicle monitor or over the speakers, press the stop request button to let the crew know, then get off through the rear door. The official cue, in other words, is the announcement of the next stop. Take that as your signal and you avoid both halves of the problem: pressing so early that the bus pulls up at the stop before yours, and pressing so late that you are carried past.

People often say the trick is to press as soon as the bus pulls away from the stop before yours. That is a rule of thumb passed around among regular passengers, not wording the Bureau has ever published. If you realize you have forgotten to press at all, standing up and making your way forward while the bus is moving is dangerous, so it is generally safer to call out to the crew from where you are.

Which door you leave by is settled too. For Toei buses within the 23 wards, the Bureau explains that getting off through the front door risks contact with boarding passengers and injury, which is why it asks passengers to use the middle door, that is, the rear one. The front door is the boarders' path. Routes in the Tama area work the other way round: you board at the rear and take a numbered ticket, and you get off at the front. In either area, as a general point, staying in your seat until the bus has come to a stop cuts the risk of a fall.

What trips people up, and what to check next

Even readers who have been through the official guidance tend to come away with a few things back to front. Here are four that get muddled most often.

• Where you wait at the stop - The Bureau's notice is that if nobody is at the stop, a bus may go straight past. Wait in the shade a little way off, or just inside a shop doorway, and the driver may read that as nobody wanting to board. The reliable approach is to wait at the noriba itself and check the destination and route number as the bus comes in.
• The seats used for securing strollers - There are markings and auxiliary belts, but these are not stroller-only seats. The Bureau explains that a stroller may be secured with someone still sitting there.
• Where the priority seats are and how many there are - No specific statement of this appears on the official pages (as of September 2026). Check the signage inside the vehicle.
• Courtesies that are not written down officially - Taking a large rucksack off your back, or turning your earphones down, are things people say generally rather than requests the Bureau has set out in writing.

The Bureau also produces posters on riding etiquette. Its series for the 2026 fiscal year, titled 忍者の道もマナーから (even the way of the ninja begins with manners), takes as its subjects dashing for a departing bus and walking while looking at your phone.

If you would like to walk through the whole sequence from boarding to getting off again, see our guide to riding a Toei bus; how to accept a seat when one is offered, and other ways of making the trip easier, are gathered in our guide to using buses as an older passenger. The Busdoko home page shows where buses are running at the moment and the expected arrival at each noriba on a map, which also helps you pick a time that avoids the worst of the crowds.