For Japan’s train commuters in the years following World War II, buying a ticket could be a stressful experience. Today it’s not difficult to go online and reserve a seat, but 65 years ago, travelers faced long queues at the ticket window and limited ways to find out if seats were available. Reservations were handwritten in a paper ledger, and there were plenty of accidental double-bookings. Travelers had no real way to know if they’d have—or could get—a reservation once they reached a ticket window.
All that changed in 1960, when the Japanese National Railways (JNR), which operated the country’s system, partnered with technology company Hitachi to introduce the world’s first fully automated railway booking system: the Magnetic-electronic Automatic Reservation System-1.
MARS-1 gave JNR the ability to reserve up to 3,600 seats per day for travelers across four routes between Tokyo and Osaka. Bookings could be accepted up to 15 days in advance. Passengers no longer had to gamble on availability, because reservations were confirmed in seconds. Riders traveling in groups could even reserve seats next to each other, ensuring families could stay together during the journey.
The system has been commemorated as an IEEE Milestone for its role in transforming railway ticketing in Japan, and even in other countries.
As of press time, the dedication ceremony was being planned.
Introducing computers to Japan
After the end of World War II, Japan’s economy began to recover relatively quickly, thanks to sweeping economic reforms that led to an industrial boom by the mid-1950s. Thanks in part to its economic growth, Japan invested heavily in its rail infrastructure, making trains more efficient and convenient for daily commuters and for long-distance travelers. As ridership soared, the inefficiency of the country’s railroad ticketing system quickly became apparent.
JNR’s research institute took on the task of finding a solution. One of its engineers, Mamoru Hosaka, was already studying how computers could help automate certain tasks. Hosaka received the 2006 IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award for his work on what later became MARS-1.
In 1954 he successfully persuaded his colleagues and company executives to green-light a study into using computers to control railway systems, according to his Computer Society biography.
Three years later, he shifted his focus and formed a team to investigate developing an automated reservation system using magnetic drum memory with a Bendix G-15 computer. Widely used in the 1950s and 1960s, magnetic drum memory stored information on the outside of a rotating cylinder coated with magnetic iron.
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