Do Toei Buses Stop for a Typhoon - How Suspensions Are Announced

On a typhoon day, Toei buses can stop running

When a large typhoon is on the way, the first question most people ask is whether the trains will run. For anyone who commutes by bus, or depends on one to reach a hospital appointment, what happens to the bus matters just as much. So here is the answer up front: Toei buses can suspend service when a typhoon is severe enough. And that decision is not always taken on the day itself, out on the road. When Typhoon No. 19 approached in October 2019, the announcement came out the day before, and it named the hour from which every route would stop.

At the same time, no official statement can be found for Toei Bus along the lines of "service is suspended once wind speed reaches a given figure." Neither the frequently asked questions published by the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation nor its guide to the bus service information site explains how a suspension is decided; there are no published criteria as of September 2026. What that leaves you as a passenger is not guesswork about thresholds but something more practical: picking up the official announcement early and rearranging your own plans around it. This article begins with what was actually announced in 2019, then works through what tends to happen in severe weather, where to check whether buses are running, and what you can do from the day before through to the hours after the storm has passed.

October 2019: Typhoon No. 19 brought a suspension announced the day before

The most concrete evidence available is a case the Tokyo Metropolitan Government itself put on record. Report No. 17 of "Response to Typhoon No. 19 of 2019," issued on the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Disaster Prevention Website at 13:00 on 12 October 2019, set out the planned service for Toei transport in a table, mode by mode. The row for Toei Bus read as follows (translated from the Japanese).

• "All routes / service suspended / from 14:00 until the last bus"
• "The suspension may be brought forward depending on the state of the typhoon."

The preamble to the notice read: "With Typhoon No. 19 approaching, we plan to suspend services as set out below. A substantial reduction in the number of services and disruption to timetables are also expected. We ask you to refrain from going out unless it is urgent. Please note that no alternative transport arrangements with other operators will be made in connection with this." That closing sentence about transfers to other operators was a condition stated in that particular notice; it has not been published as a rule that always applies in severe weather. Even so, it is a fair basis for not counting on being carried by another company's lines instead.

The day after matters just as much. The same Report No. 17 said of Toei Bus on 13 October that "a later start to first services, a substantial reduction in the number of services and timetable disruption are expected." And once the typhoon had passed, the notice from the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation summarising the position as of 6:30 on 13 October described the buses this way: "3. Toei Bus: because safety checks are being carried out along the routes after the typhoon passed, first services are starting later, the number of services is substantially reduced, and timetables are disrupted." In the same notice the Toei Subway and the Nippori-Toneri Liner were given a time: "as the safety of operations has been confirmed, services will resume progressively across all lines from 7:00." In other words, the morning after a typhoon has gone, the buses are not necessarily back to normal.

No published criteria for deciding a suspension

So under what conditions does a Toei bus stop running? This is the point to be honest about. Read the frequently asked questions for Toei Bus, the guide to the bus service information site and the list of notices, and you will find nothing that explains the criteria for deciding a suspension; there are no published criteria as of September 2026. What the pages on operations and timings mostly offer is the means of looking service information up. This article therefore cannot give you a figure such as "buses stop at a wind speed of so many meters per second" or "at so many centimetres of snow."

Criteria not being published is a separate matter from no decision being made. As 2019 showed, the hour from which every route will be suspended can be stated as early as the previous day. Equally, as the note on that announcement made plain when it reserved the possibility that "the suspension may be brought forward," a plan once issued can move earlier. A plan does get published, and it can still change. Holding both halves of that in mind is the right stance for a day of severe weather.

One further difference from the railway is worth keeping in view, and it is a matter of where a bus travels. A bus has no dedicated track. It uses ordinary roads, shared with other vehicles and with pedestrians. In heavy rain or strong wind, whatever happens on the road side feeds straight through into the service: flooded stretches, fallen trees, intersections with the signals out, congestion, road closures. Even in ordinary weather a journey time swings with the state of the road, and the reasons behind that swing are set out in why buses run late. On a day of severe weather, the easiest way to picture it is that same swing, one size larger.

What a typhoon day tends to bring: delays, fewer services, service cut short, and a slow morning after

What happens to buses in severe weather cannot be captured in the single word "suspension." Taking the wording that appeared in the 2019 announcements as a guide, it arrives in stages.

• Timetable disruption - buses not coming when the timetable says they will. Arrival times stop being predictable, so any connection needs far more slack than usual.
• A substantial reduction in the number of services - departures thinned out. The assumption that every departure printed on the timetable will actually run no longer holds.
• A later start to first services - the first bus of the morning running later than normal. This bites hardest on a day with an early appointment. How the ends of the day work is covered in first and last buses.
• Service suspension - no buses running on that section or route. In 2019 it was announced with the clock attached: from 14:00 until the last bus.

The point easiest to miss here is that a suspension can come with a time attached. You can set out thinking that buses are running so all is well, and find that nothing is running when you want to come home. Look at the hours of your return trip as well as the outward one, check the times given in the announcement, and only then decide whether to go.

Then there is the stretch after the typhoon has cleared. The 2019 case explained the state of the buses as being "because safety checks are being carried out along the routes after the typhoon passed," and working through road after road takes time. Even where the railway resumes first, the buses can stay disrupted for a good while longer. When you plan the following morning, it is worth checking separately whether the bus to the station is back to its normal pattern.

One caution belongs to severe weather in particular. The frequently asked questions of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation state that "if nobody is at the stop, the bus may pass by." If you shelter from the rain and wind under an awning a little way off, there is a real chance the driver will not register that anyone is waiting. As a bus approaches, move to where it is obvious you are waiting at the noriba, and raise a hand to make your intention clear.

How to think about a day of snow

For snow and freezing rain, the way of thinking is the same as for a typhoon. Because a bus travels on the road, a slippery surface forces it to slow down, and on hills, on bridges and at shaded intersections getting through at all can become difficult. Snow packed into ruts by earlier tires, a lane narrowed where snow has been pushed aside, traffic restrictions while clearing work goes on: every one of these pushes journey times up. No official description of how heavy snow is judged for Toei Bus could be found as of September 2026, so please take this section as general background rather than as stated policy.

The practical conclusion is simple. When snow is forecast, check service information exactly as you would on a typhoon day. That alone is most of the preparation you need. The places to check are gathered in the next section.

Where to check whether buses are running

Each of the 2019 announcements closed with a sentence pointing to where service information could be checked. Three places were named: the website of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, its official Twitter account, and the Toei Bus service information site tobus.jp. The name of that social platform changed afterwards, while its standing as the official account run by the Bureau stayed the same, so it appears below as the official social media account.

• The Bureau of Transportation website - suspensions and major disruption are posted as Toei Bus notices. This is where an advance announcement with times attached appears.
• The Bureau's official social media account - short announcements move quickly here. Reading it from the day before a typhoon arrives buys you time in deciding whether to change plans.
• The Toei Bus service information site (tobus.jp) - in the Bureau's own description, it is a service that lets you "look up, from a computer or a mobile phone, whereabouts a Toei bus is at the moment and what the nearest timetable says," and it covers route service status, vehicle approach information and stop timetables. It suits the question of whether the route you use is moving at that moment.
• The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Disaster Prevention Website - as in 2019, planned service across the whole of Toei transport is sometimes gathered into a single table, mode by mode. That helps when you want to rework a journey around the subway or the streetcar as well as the bus.

As a rule of thumb, use the Bureau website and the official social media announcements while you are deciding your plans, and the route service status on the service information site just before you leave the house. The first answers whether buses will run at all; the second answers whether they are moving at this moment. How a bus's position comes to be shown in the first place is explained in how bus location systems work.

What to do the day before, on the morning, and after the storm

The table below gathers everything above along a timeline. What the 2019 case shows is that the decisive moment is not the day itself but the evening and night before.

One more public message deserves a place at the end. The sentence carried in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's 2019 notice was "we ask that you please refrain from non-urgent outings." Before the question of whether buses are moving comes the question of whether you need to go out for that errand on that day, and thinking it through is the surest preparation of all. Even on days with no weather to speak of, a bus's arrival wavers with the state of the road. That mechanism is covered in why buses run late, and how to read a timetable is covered in reading a bus timetable, and how to think about the first and the last bus is covered in first and last buses, so both are worth reading if you want sharper judgment on a day of rough weather.