Greater Tokyo’s Monorails: Riding Above the City

When Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo Monorail officially closed in December 2023, one chapter in the country’s transportation history came to an end.

Opened in 1957, the suspended railway was Japan’s first permanent monorail operating as a railway rather than an amusement ride. For generations, it carried visitors just a few hundred meters across the zoo grounds. Service had already been suspended in 2019 because of the cost of replacing its aging equipment, but the official closure came four years later and marked the end of a line that had outlived the futuristic age in which it was born.

That said, monorails are still very much part of Greater Tokyo. Across Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa, five very different systems continue to carry passengers every day. Some ride atop a single concrete beam. Others hang beneath the track.

Together, they form one of the more unusual layers of the region’s enormous rail network. Let's take a look in our latest JRPass guide.

What Makes a Monorail Different?

A monorail runs along a single guideway rather than the pair of rails used by a conventional train. 

In Japan, most systems fall into two broad categories:

• Straddle-beam monorails: These sit on and wrap around a concrete beam. Tokyo Monorail, Tama Monorail, and the Disney Resort Line all use this basic design.
• Suspended monorails: These hang below the track, giving passengers the sensation of floating above the streets. Chiba Urban Monorail and Shonan Monorail are two of the most striking examples around the capital region.

Japan began seriously experimenting with monorails in the 1950s. A monorail had already appeared at Toshimaen, a small amusement park located in Nerima, Tokyo, in 1951, but the Ueno Zoo Monorail represented something more ambitious. Opened in 1957, it was built by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to explore whether suspended monorails could become a practical form of urban transportation.

The idea soon gained momentum. Japanese companies entered technical partnerships involving European monorail systems, while growing car ownership and worsening road congestion created demand for new forms of urban transit. The biggest breakthrough came in 1964 with the opening of Tokyo Monorail between Hamamatsucho and Haneda Airport. Built using technology derived from Germany’s Alweg system, it was Japan’s first full-scale monorail designed as a major urban transport link.

Monorails, likewise, could be built above roads or difficult terrain without requiring the same amount of ground space as conventional railways, while rubber tires allowed relatively quiet operation and the ability to tackle steep gradients.

The technology received another showcase at Expo ’70 in Osaka, where a Japanese-style straddle-beam monorail carried visitors around the exhibition grounds. That same year, Shonan Monorail opened in Kanagawa, demonstrating how a suspended system could handle the hills and tight curves of an everyday commuter route.

By then, monorails were being taken seriously enough that the national government began actively supporting them. In 1972, Japan enacted legislation promoting the development of urban monorails, followed by a subsidy system in 1974 that helped fund their infrastructure. Those policies helped pave the way for later systems around the country, including those now found in Chiba and Tama region.

Monorails never became the universal replacement for conventional trains that some early advocates imagined, however. Subways and ordinary trains remained better suited to many high-capacity routes. But in places where roads, hills, airports, or awkward gaps between existing railway lines created particular challenges, the technology carved out something of a lasting niche.

Tokyo Monorail: The Gateway to Haneda

For many international visitors, Tokyo Monorail is the first monorail they’ll encounter in Japan.

The line opened in September 1964, just weeks before the Tokyo Olympics, linking Hamamatsucho with Haneda Airport. At a time when Japan was rapidly presenting a new, modern face to the world, an elevated train gliding above Tokyo Bay felt appropriately futuristic.

The route has changed as Haneda itself expanded, but its basic purpose remains much the same. Today, the 17.8-kilometer line runs from Hamamatsucho to Haneda Airport Terminal 2, serving all three airport terminals and several other stations along the way. What’s more, the monorail’s Airport Rapid services can make the journey in around 18 minutes.

The appeal is not only speed. Parts of the journey open onto broad views of canals, warehouses, boats, aircraft, and Tokyo’s waterfront. It is a very different first impression of the city from Shibuya Crossing or Tokyo Station.

For travelers, it also connects neatly with the wider rail network, including the JR Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines at Hamamatsucho.

Tama Toshi Monorail Line: Crossing Western Tokyo

Tokyo’s other major monorail serves a completely different landscape.

Rather than bringing passengers into the city from an airport, the Tama Toshi Monorail Line cuts north to south across western Tokyo, a place also known as the Tama region, linking suburban communities that grew around several different private railway lines.

The first section opened between Kamikitadai and Tachikawa-Kita in 1998, followed by the extension south to Tama-Center Station in 2000. The completed route stretches 16 kilometers and serves 19 stations.

For visitors, it can be surprisingly useful. The line serves Tama Zoological Park and the university district around Chuo and Meisei universities, while Tachikawa provides access to one of western Tokyo’s major shopping and transport centers.

The ride itself feels a world away from central Tokyo. Long stretches pass above wide roads and residential areas, with open views across western suburbs rather than dark tunnels and dense high-rises.

In that sense, Tama Toshi Monorail Line reveals why it was built in the first place: not to carry everyone toward central Tokyo, but to connect the Tama region with itself.

Disney Resort Line: When the Ride Begins Early

Just across the Edo River in Chiba Prefecture, one monorail functions as both transportation and part of the attraction.

The Disney Resort Line circles Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, linking Maihama Station with Tokyo Disneyland, the resort hotel area, and Tokyo DisneySea. Its four stations form a loop that takes about 13 minutes to complete.

Unlike a free theme-park shuttle, the line has its own fares and tickets. But little about the experience feels like an ordinary commute. Trains incorporate Disney-inspired details, including distinctive windows and themed interiors, while the stations themselves are designed to feel like extensions of the resort.

The line opened in 2001 and solved a very practical problem. Tokyo Disney Resort covers a pretty large area, and the monorail allows visitors arriving at Maihama Station to move easily between the parks, hotels, and surrounding facilities.

Chiba Urban Monorail: Hanging Above the City

Staying in Chiba, the Chiba Urban Monorail is perhaps one of Japan’s most visually dramatic.

Its trains do not sit on top of a beam. Rather, they hang underneath the track, moving above the streets and intersections of central Chiba. From inside, the lack of visible rails beneath the carriage creates the unusual sensation that the city has simply dropped away below you.

The system began operating in 1988 and later expanded into two lines totaling 15.2 kilometers. In 2001, Guinness World Records recognized it as the longest suspended monorail system in the world.

That size also makes it very different from a novelty railway. Chiba Urban Monorail is part of the city’s everyday transport network, connecting Chiba-Minato on Tokyo Bay with Chiba Station, the prefectural government district, and residential areas farther inland.

For many years, the system was also unusual in another way: it accepted only Suica and PASMO among Japan’s major transport IC cards. That changed in March 2026, when the monorail joined the nationwide IC-card interoperability network, allowing passengers to use cards such as ICOCA, TOICA, SUGOCA, and others as well.

For visitors, the most striking sections are those through central Chiba, where trains glide above multilane roads and pass surprisingly close to office buildings.

At times, it can feel like a 1960s vision of future transport, except that here it is simply how people get to work.

Shonan Monorail: The “Jet Coaster” to Enoshima

Greater Tokyo’s most exhilarating monorail may be found in Kanagawa.

Shonan Monorail runs from Ofuna to Shonan-Enoshima, providing a direct route toward one of the region’s best-known seaside destinations. Like the Chiba system, its trains hang beneath the track, but the technology and the experience are both quite different.

The line uses the French-developed SAFEGE system, in which rubber-tired running gear is enclosed inside a box-shaped guideway above the train. Mitsubishi saw potential in the technology and helped bring it to Japan, with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Corporation, Keikyu, and others establishing Shonan Monorail in 1966 as a demonstration of the system’s potential for urban transport. The company itself describes the line as an early proving ground for promoting suspended SAFEGE technology in Japan.

The first section opened from Ofuna to Nishi-Kamakura in March 1970, the same year as Expo ’70 in Osaka, before the route was completed to Shonan-Enoshima in 1971.

And Mitsubishi had chosen a demanding place to prove the idea. The line crosses hills and valleys, passes through two tunnels, and follows tight curves rather than simply gliding above flat city streets. 

That helped earn this monorail its nickname, “Shonan Jet Coaster.”

For all its futuristic engineering, however, the line was surprisingly old-fashioned in one respect for a long time. Shonan Monorail did not begin accepting PASMO until April 1, 2018, which also opened the system to Suica, PASMO, and the other nationally interoperable transport IC cards. 

That same year brought another unusual milestone. Shonan Monorail formed a sister-monorail partnership with Germany’s Wuppertal Schwebebahn, the world’s oldest surviving suspended monorail, which opened in 1901. The two systems use different technologies, but both remain rare examples of suspended monorails still operating as everyday public transport.

That contrast is part of what makes Shonan Monorail so memorable. It may feel like a theme-park ride as it swings through the hills, but for local residents it is simply a working railway, while visitors get one of the fastest and most distinctive ways to reach Enoshima from Ofuna.

Final Thoughts

The Ueno Zoo Monorail belonged to an age when monorails were often imagined as the transport of tomorrow. In fact, it had originally been introduced partly as an experiment to test whether suspended monorails might have wider potential in Tokyo.

Its closure in 2023 may have felt like the end of that particular vision. But the systems that remain around Greater Tokyo show why monorails survived.

None of them replaced the conventional railway, and none really needed to.

Their value lies in doing specific jobs and doing them well. Decades after monorails stopped looking like science fiction, they remain some of the most distinctive ways to move through Greater Tokyo, whether gliding over Tokyo Bay, hanging above Chiba’s streets, or swinging through the hills on the way to Enoshima.

FAQs

Q: Can you use Suica or PASMO on Greater Tokyo’s monorails?

A: Yes. The major systems covered here accept transport IC cards.

Q: Is Tokyo Monorail covered by the Japan Rail Pass?

A: Yes. The Japan Rail Pass can be used on Tokyo Monorail between Hamamatsucho and Haneda Airport.

Q: Can luggage be brought onto the monorails?

A: Yes, within each operator’s size and safety limits. Tokyo Monorail even provides luggage spaces inside some trains, which is especially useful for airport passengers.

Q: Are there one-day passes for any of the monorails?

A: Yes. Tama Monorail, for example, sells a one-day pass allowing unlimited travel across the entire line.

Q: Are Greater Tokyo’s monorails accessible for wheelchair users?

A: Generally, yes, although facilities vary by station. Tokyo Monorail, for example, provides wheelchair assistance, but some stations have more limited barrier-free facilities than others.

Q: Can you bring bicycles onto Greater Tokyo’s monorails?

A: Usually only if they are folded or disassembled and placed in a proper bicycle bag. Tama Monorail, for example, allows bicycles carried this way.

Q: Do monorails run as frequently as ordinary trains?

A: On major systems such as Tokyo Monorail, services are frequent enough to function much like a conventional urban railway. Smaller regional systems may operate less often.

Q: Are monorails quieter than conventional trains?

A: Often, yes. Many Japanese monorails use rubber tires, which can reduce wheel-on-rail noise and also help trains handle steeper gradients.

Q: What is Japan’s oldest monorail still operating today?

A: Tokyo Monorail is now Japan’s oldest operating monorail, having opened between Hamamatsucho and Haneda Airport on September 17, 1964. It was also the country’s first full-scale monorail built as a major urban transport system.

Q: Which Greater Tokyo monorail is best for sightseeing?

A: It depends on the experience. Tokyo Monorail offers waterfront and airport views, Chiba gives a dramatic suspended ride above city streets, while Shonan Monorail is known for its steep gradients, curves, and “Jet Coaster” feel.