Kaiso (running out of service)

Moving a bus without passengers aboard. It is done for trips to and from the garage among other things, and a bus whose destination sign reads kaiso is one you cannot board. Know this display and you can judge at a glance whether the bus coming toward you is one you can take.

What kaiso means

Kaiso is the movement of a bus alone, with no passengers aboard, to where it needs to be. It happens in all sorts of situations before, after and between spells of revenue service: heading from the garage to the stop where service begins, returning to the garage once service is over, moving for inspection or refueling. A bus running out of service displays 回送 (kaiso) or 回送車 (kaisosha, a bus out of service) on the destination sign at the front and on the side, does not call at stops, and cannot be boarded. The idea is the same as an out-of-service train on the railways: a backstage movement made between spells of carrying the public.

Knowing the kaiso sign saves you from false hope

Waiting at a stop, when a bus in the familiar livery draws near from a distance, you naturally think "here it is." But if the sign reads 回送, that bus is going to sail right past you. Without knowing the word, you are left uneasy, wondering "why won't it stop for me?" or "have I got the wrong boarding point?" Knowing it, you can tell at a glance that "this one is not in service" and wait calmly for the next. The knowledge helps at the terminus too. The bus you came in on will not necessarily turn straight around, and if its sign changes to 回送 that is the signal that it is going home to the garage, so you can make the decision to look up your return trip separately in the timetable.

At stops and on roads near a garage, and in the morning and evening hours, you will see buses running out of service quite often. If you feel as though bus after bus goes by and you never get to board one, try checking the signs. A bus you can board displays a route number and a destination. Learning the two characters 回送 takes one irritation out of your waiting time. For the whole picture of how to tell the displays apart, see our article on how to read bus destination signs.

How this differs from deirikobin

What kaiso is easily confused with is deirikobin, in-service garage trips. Both involve movement between the garage and the routes in service, but whereas kaiso is a movement that carries no passengers, a deirikobin is revenue service that carries passengers while doubling as a run out of or back into the garage. In other words, even among buses that are equally "on their way back to the garage," you cannot board one running as kaiso and you can board a deirikobin. Tell them apart like this and you will not go wrong: 回送 on the destination sign means the former, a route number and the name of a stop mean the latter.