The Toei Bus network in numbers: from daily trips to the bus that runs one day a year

A day on the Toei Bus network, seen through numbers

Toei buses run every day so routinely that it is easy to take them for granted, yet look at the whole of the network in numbers and an unexpected picture appears. Toei Bus routes number 151 in all, serving roughly 1,674 stops. And on a weekday, 15,060 bus trips run across the streets of Tokyo in a single day. Reduced to a per-minute figure, that means more than 10 buses are departing somewhere in Tokyo every minute.

This article looks inside those 15,060 trips from five angles, each with a chart: the number of trips, the length of the routes, the hours of service, the day of the week, and fares. Every figure is based on the timetable as of August 2026. By the time you reach the end, the bus you ride every day may look a little different.

Trips per day: the busiest bus comes every 2 to 3 minutes

First, the number of trips in a day. The busiest route on a weekday is 東 22, which links Tokyo Sta. Marunouchi-Kitaguchi (Marunouchi North Exit) with Kinshichō Sta., at 403 trips a day. Averaged over the whole day from morning to night, that works out at one bus roughly every 2 to 3 minutes. It is the sort of frequency where you can turn up at the stop without checking the timetable and the next one will come, which makes it less a bus route than a moving walkway.

The upper ranks are lined with the great arteries of central Tokyo, among them 都 01 between Shibuya Sta. and Shimbashi Sta. Each of them runs more than 300 trips a day, working as a second network that fills the gaps between the railway stations.

At the opposite extreme sits 練 68, with a mere 4 trips on a weekday and none at all on Saturdays and Sundays. Within one and the same system called Toei Bus, a route with 403 trips a day and a route with 4 live side by side. That spread is exactly what makes the local bus such an interesting creature.

Route length: 29 km one way, practically a short excursion

Next, the length of the routes. The longest is 梅 70, running from Hana-Koganei Sta. Kitaguchi (North Exit) to the bus garage at Ōme Shako, 29.29 km one way. It calls at as many as 80 stops. A single local bus route covers a distance comparable to the east-west width of Tokyo's 23 wards.

The top of the length ranking is almost monopolized by routes in the Ome area, because in districts with few railway stations the bus is the trunk transport itself. Measured by journey time, the longest single trip is the 119-minute run on 池 86: a bus journey of nearly two hours, which means being carried along for about as long as a feature film.

At the other end, the shortest is 学 06 at 1.64 km. It runs on the campus of the University of Tokyo, a distance you could walk in a little over 20 minutes, and yet it has a proper job to do, carrying people to class and to the hospital. Between 29.29 km and 1.64 km, the difference is roughly 18 times over.

From morning to night: first bus at 5:02, last at 23:39

A Toei Bus day begins before dawn. The earliest first bus of all is the 5:02 departure from 新橋駅前 on 市 01, which sets off while it is still dark, carrying people bound for the markets. Bringing the day to a close is 都 02, whose final trip reaches 大塚二丁目 at 23:39.

That same 都 02 also has the longest span of service, from first bus to last, of any route: from 5:52 in the morning to 23:39 at night, a span of 17 hours 47 minutes in all. For most of the hours in the day, this one route has a bus out on the streets somewhere.

The interesting case is the one at the opposite end: 陽 12-2 is a morning-only route, running from 6:35 to 9:56. It runs in the morning and at no other time, in step with the commuting and school rush, so that it amounts to a bus for the morning alone. How to look up first and last buses is covered in detail in how to look up the first and last bus.

It changes with the day: Sunday has some 3,500 fewer trips than a weekday

Even on the same route, the number of buses changes a great deal with the day of the week. Total trips in a day come to 15,060 on weekdays, against 12,855 on Saturdays and 11,531 on Sundays. Sunday has some 3,500 fewer trips than a weekday, which means that roughly a quarter of the whole is weekday-only.

Since these buses are how people get to work and to school, it stands to reason that weekdays are the thickest, but route by route the picture wears a different face. Some routes run only on weekdays, while others, such as those heading for a zoo or a sightseeing spot, run only at weekends and on holidays, and a few even have more trips on a Sunday than on a weekday. A timetable is a mirror held up to the way the city lives on each day of the week. Before you go out, the sure approach is to check the timetable for that day of the week.

The bus that is the same 365 days a year, and the bus that runs on one

From here, two things the numbers turned up that are worth a small "well, I never".

The first is 江東 01. This loop route, which starts and finishes at Shiomi Sta., runs to exactly the same timetable on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays, on national holidays, through the Obon period and on New Year's Day alike, all 365 days of the year. 17 trips every day, from the first at 9:00 in the morning to the last at 17:25. Of all 151 routes, this is the only one whose timetable does not shift by a single minute across the year. "On New Year's Day it comes at nine o'clock sharp, the same as today." In the world of buses, where timetables change busily with the seasons, that is quite a rare thing.

The second is the exact opposite story. AL01, a route starting and finishing at Higashi-Ōjima Sta., runs 22 trips on a single day of the year, August 15. And there is a counterpart: 品 99, which circles around Shinagawa Sta. Kōnanguchi (Kōnan Exit), runs on 364 days of the year and rests on just one, August 15. The two routes therefore stand in a mirror relationship, with the one route's single annual appearance and the other route's single annual day off passing each other on the very same date. It is a small coincidence that comes to light only when you look into every corner of the timetable figures.

The fare surprise: supposedly a flat ¥210, yet there is a ¥650 section

"A Toei bus is a flat ¥210 for adults." As far as riding inside the 23 wards goes, that is quite true. Look across the network as a whole, though, and the story is not so simple. 梅 74 甲, in the Ome area, has sections where the fare changes with the distance you ride, and the dearest section costs ¥650: more than three times the flat fare.

Across the network there are 44 different fare steps, ranging from ¥100 up to ¥650. The assumption that Toei Bus means one flat fare turns out to be a picture that holds only inside the 23 wards. How to pay and what discounts are available are gathered in Toei Bus fares and how to pay.

Knowing the numbers makes waiting for a bus a little more fun

15,060 trips in a day, a longest route of 29.29 km, an earliest first bus at 5:02, and a bus that runs on one day a year. Seen through its numbers, the Toei Bus network turns out to hide any number of unexpected stories inside the everyday scenery. While you wait at the stop for the next one, there is a certain pleasure in wondering which trip of the day this particular bus is.

And to find out where the bus you are waiting for is running right now, all you have to do is pick your stop name on the Busdoko home page. Once you have the big picture in numbers, turn to the single bus in front of you. If this article gives you a reason to enjoy your usual bus a little more, so much the better.

The figures in this article are our own analysis based on the timetable as of August 2026 and do not reflect any later timetable or fare revisions.