Railroad driver’s license: 20 years or older → Consider adjusting it to 18 years or older.
Bus and taxi license tests can be taken in foreign languages such as English or Korean.
The Japanese government is expected to relax age regulations as the difficulty in recruiting operating personnel in the transportation sector, including railways, intensifies.
The Nippon Keizai Shimbun reported on the 26th that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is considering lowering the age of drivers who can obtain driver’s licenses from 20 to 18 from 2024.
The Ministry of State Affairs and Trade plans to set up an expert meeting to begin discussions and revise the Ordinance related to the Railway Business Act, which sets the qualifications for applying for national qualifications as a railway driver.
There are two ways to obtain a railroad license in Japan: passing the local transportation bureau exam or taking driving lessons at a nationally designated training center.
Under current regulations, anyone under the age of 20 is not eligible to take the test and cannot obtain a license. There is discussion about easing this age standard by next year to allow 18 and 19 year olds as well. However, it is expected that a certain period of experience working as a station employee or conductor will be added as a condition for acquisition. The age for entering training centers is also lowered.
Meanwhile, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the Japanese National Police Agency has made it possible to take the type 2 licensing exam required to drive a taxi or bus in a foreign language. Currently, the test is only required to be taken in Japanese, so the transportation industry, which is suffering from a shortage of drivers, is said to have expressed a desire for multilingualization.
The Japanese National Police Agency plans to distribute examples translated into 20 languages, including English and Korean, to police headquarters across the country within this year. The foreign language used in exam questions is determined by the police of each prefecture based on the foreigners’ residence status.
As of the end of last year, there were 880,536 people who had two types of regular licenses to drive taxis and two types of large buses to drive large buses, but only 5,189 of them were foreign nationals.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.