Get into a taxi in Japan and the rear door swings open as it pulls up. The driver works it with a lever from his seat. Many visitors are startled, because in most countries the passenger opens the door.
A door for drivers who kept getting out
Nikkei reported the story in 2019, from two people at the company that makes the doors. In the late 1950s Okada Minoru, a Tokyo trader, kept hearing taxi people say it would be handy if the driver could open the back door without getting out. In those days drivers often stepped out to open and close it for every passenger.
Okada teamed up with an inventor, Maruyama Kunide. Nikkei says they built a door worked by the suction inside the engine's intake. The company, Toshin Tech, gives its founding year as 1959.
"A luxury"
The taxi firms would not buy. Nikkei says there was a stubborn feeling in the industry that an automatic door was a luxury. Orders stayed thin, and the company kept itself going on other products, such as car air conditioners.
1964
The turn came in 1964, when Tokyo hosted the first Olympics in Asia. Nikkei reported that big Tokyo taxi firms, Nihon Kotsu among them, fitted the doors as a way to show visitors Japanese hospitality. Once the big firms had them, their rivals had to follow, and the door spread across the country quickly. Toshin Tech has also said the doors first caught on for a practical reason: drivers who stepped out into traffic to open the door were having accidents.
Toshin Tech says it now makes the doors for about 90 percent of Japan's taxis.
See it yourself
- The lever. On the taxi to Ueno, wait for the door. Nobody touches it, and you step in without reaching for a handle.
- The ride. Your guide uses it to tell you what you will see at Ueno, so the taxi replaces several train transfers without losing anything.
