Towards a history of transit etiquette: the development of orderly boarding practices in Tokyo

Abstract

This article is a call for the historical study of transit etiquette: the behavioural expectations that guide the mundane conduct of transport users. It identifies the formation of contemporary protocols of transit etiquette as a productive line of scholarly inquiry by taking the transformation of (de)boarding behaviours in Tokyo between the 1880s and the 1960s as a case study. Zooming in on urban railways in the Japanese capital, it describes the processes through which (de)boarding practices grew more elaborate in character and more narrowly defined in terms of the spatio-temporal location at which they could be legitimately exercised. It examines three groups of factors that contributed to this process: “software” and “hardware” interventions in transport operations as well as their broader historic context. Simultaneously, it cautions against linear narratives of consistent improvement by stressing the contradictions of this process. The article contributes to mobility studies by calling attention to the malleability and socio-technical construction of the norms that guide mundane mobility practices. It provides a provisional template for subsequent historical accounts of transit etiquette, and argues that such studies can empower research on mobilities and transport to contribute to wider debates about (in)civility and the organisation of urban life.