After spending 12 years in Tokyo and riding its metro system daily, moving to Lisbon provided me with a unique perspective on urban transit. While Lisbon’s metro system serves as the backbone of Portugal’s capital with its four colorful lines spanning 44.5 kilometers and 56 stations, my experience in Tokyo showed me how much potential remains untapped. The Japanese metropolis, with its vastly larger population and different cultural context, has perfected systems and approaches that Lisbon could adapt to dramatically improve user experience.
Lisbon shouldn’t just prepare for today’s needs but build for tomorrow’s city. Here’s what Portugal’s capital can learn from Tokyo to transform its good metro system into an exceptional one.
1. Flawless Vertical Transportation Infrastructure
In Tokyo, elevator and escalator downtime is treated as an emergency. When I lived there, I rarely encountered out-of-service vertical transportation, despite the system’s enormous scale. Maintenance crews work overnight, and digital systems predict failures before they occur.
Lisbon’s current reactive approach to maintenance results in elevators and escalators remaining broken for weeks or months. For a city built on seven hills with deep underground stations, this creates significant hardships for elderly passengers, those with mobility impairments, tourists with luggage, and parents with strollers.
Tokyo’s approach includes: Tokyo’s approach includes preventive maintenance conducted during off-hours, IoT sensors detecting potential failures before they occur, 24/7 technical teams with rapid response protocols, clear digital signage indicating equipment status, and annual replacement schedules for aging infrastructure.
By adopting Tokyo’s proactive maintenance philosophy, Lisbon could dramatically improve accessibility and reliability, treating vertical transportation as essential infrastructure rather than an amenity.
2. Extended Service Hours Aligned with City Life
Tokyo’s metro runs until around 1:00 AM, with some lines operating even later on weekends. This schedule accommodates the city’s vibrant nightlife, late-shift workers, and evening cultural events. When trains do stop, an efficient network of night buses takes over.
Extending Lisbon’s metro service until 2:00 AM seven days a week would represent a significant quality-of-life improvement for residents and visitors alike. This would reduce dependence on night buses and taxis, enhance safety for those traveling after dark, and support Lisbon’s growing tourism and hospitality industries.
In Tokyo, I observed how extended hours created vibrant neighborhoods farther from the city center, as residents could confidently travel home late without concerns about transportation. Lisbon could experience similar benefits, with the additional revenue partially offsetting operational costs.
3. Crystal-Clear Directional Signage
Perhaps Tokyo’s greatest achievement is making an incredibly complex metro system navigable even for first-time visitors. Despite having over 280 stations across multiple interconnected lines, Tokyo’s metro uses consistent, abundantly placed directional signage, color-coded lines with unique identifying numbers and symbols, large overhead digital displays showing final destinations and stops, platform-level maps highlighting current locations and directions, and multilingual information that’s intuitive even without language skills.
Lisbon’s current signage system frequently leaves tourists and occasional users confused about train directions. Implementing Tokyo-style comprehensive signage would significantly improve navigation, reduce platform crowding caused by disoriented travelers, and create a more welcoming experience for international visitors.
4. Numbered Exit System with Street-Level Mapping
In Tokyo, metro exits are numbered, with clear correspondence between underground signage and above-ground landmarks. Digital maps inside stations show precisely which exit to use for specific destinations, saving valuable time and preventing frustration.
Implementing a similar system in Lisbon would transform the experience of emerging from stations into unfamiliar neighborhoods. Each exit would receive a simple numerical designation. Maps would display these numbers alongside street names and landmarks. Digital panels would show the closest exit for common destinations. Mobile apps could direct users to specific exits based on final destinations. Additionally, exit numbers would integrate with accessibility information.
This simple change would dramatically improve the experience of both tourists and residents navigating Lisbon’s sometimes confusing street layouts.
5. Optimized Train Car Design for Maximum Capacity
Tokyo’s metro cars are masterpieces of spatial efficiency. Most use side-facing seating to maximize standing room and create wider aisles for smooth passenger flow. Priority seating areas are clearly marked, and trains are designed to accommodate rush hour crowds while maintaining comfort.
By transitioning from the current forward and backward-facing seats to side-facing configurations, Lisbon could increase total passenger capacity by up to 15% per car, create wider central aisles for improved movement, reduce boarding and alighting times, provide more space for luggage, strollers, and wheelchairs, and improve overall system capacity without purchasing additional trains.
While this change would require investment in refitting existing rolling stock, the capacity improvements would yield significant returns through increased ridership without the much higher cost of acquiring new trains.
6. Platform Organization Through Floor Markings
Tokyo’s platforms feature clearly marked queuing lines that organize boarding in an orderly fashion. Passengers wait in designated areas, allowing those exiting to do so freely before anyone boards. This system creates remarkable efficiency even during rush hours.
Strategic floor markings on Lisbon’s platforms would transform the currently chaotic boarding process. These would include colored zones indicating where train doors will open, arrow patterns directing boarding passengers to stand aside until alighting is complete, queuing markers for high-volume periods, priority areas for passengers with mobility needs, and visual indicators showing optimal positions during crowded periods.
These simple visual cues cost little to implement but significantly improve passenger flow, reduce dwell time at stations, and create a more orderly and pleasant travel experience.
Embracing Digital Integration
Beyond physical improvements, Tokyo’s metro excels at digital integration. Real-time information is available through multiple channels, accurate to the minute. Mobile apps provide personalized navigation, crowding information, and service updates.
Lisbon could enhance its digital presence by developing a comprehensive, user-friendly app with real-time information, installing digital displays showing wait times at all stations, creating systems to alert users about station accessibility issues, implementing seamless integration with other transportation modes, and providing personalized route suggestions based on current conditions.
Conclusion
Lisbon’s metro has admirably served the city for over six decades, but targeted improvements inspired by Tokyo’s world-class system could elevate it from functional to exceptional. While these changes would require investment, they would yield substantial returns in increased ridership, improved tourist experiences, enhanced accessibility, and strengthened urban mobility.
By implementing these Tokyo-inspired enhancements, Lisbon wouldn’t just be addressing current transportation needs—it would be building infrastructure worthy of its future as a growing European capital. As Portugal continues to attract global attention as a hub for technology, culture, and quality of life, its capital deserves a metro system that embodies these same forward-thinking values.
Tokyo and Lisbon may differ dramatically in size and culture, but the principles of efficient, user-friendly public transportation are universal. With these strategic improvements, Lisbon could truly make its metro great again, creating a system that not only meets basic transportation needs but also reflects the city’s innovative spirit and commitment to excellence.
