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HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/2 11:25
So, HyperDia (http://www.hyperdia.com/en/) is highly recommended by a lot of sites for figuring out train schedules in Japan – I know Japan-Guide.com has a whole page dedicated to figuring out how to use it! I've used it a lot in my own travels as well, and it's always been extremely useful and convenient!

The problem is, starting yesterday, HyperDia has stopped posting any times that trains will depart. Instead, they now only show you potential connections. They'll tell you what trains you can transfer between to get between places, but not when those trains leave – making it now useless for planning out a trip.

I'm trying to find any decent alternative. HyperDia was an amazing site, and it's sad to see it a shadow of its former self like this. Does anyone know of any other sites that can help? Alsot, does anyone have any idea of why this change was made?

Thank you for any and all help you're able to give!
by Cicero (guest)  

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/2 17:03
by Uji rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/2 17:34
Hyperdia is now relegated to a curiosity and is certainly of limited use. Simple reason (as is speculated on my TA post) is money and the JG news page suggests that is a factor.
I have used Jourdain in the past, and my experience with Google is at best "hit and miss" as it suggests some odd alternatives that I know to be inefficient or wrong. It is going to make trip planning much more difficult for visitors when tourism resumes (probably later this year).
For me, even the option of buying the print version of the JR timetables is of limited value as there are around 150 rail companies in Japan and 48 in Tokyo alone (yes, almost 50!) While just 15 companies carry almost 90% of total passengers, that is still 15 companies and their timetables.
But, wait, there is more. Hyperdia did not just do trains, but handily incorporated bus and flight information. It is a big dent in a valuable service.
by JapanCustomTours rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/2 17:57
It might be poor form to respond to my own thread like this, but in the interim time I've found what feels like a satisfying alternative: https://roote.ekispert.net/en

It feels very much like HyperDia used to, minus a few options when it comes to excluding Shinkansen which aren't the premium Nozomi/Mizuho – but by looking at the route options it provides you, it's not too hard to simply ignore them.

That being said, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for anything else people continue to post, because if this business with HyperDia has shown me anything, you can never be too prepared with alternatives!

Hopefully Hitachi realizes how vital this service was to people and reinstates it. I had a good opinion of them as a company because they operated this website that was such a tremendous help, but now, it would take a while for them to regain that trust.
by Cicero (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/3 00:17
Japanese language version of https://www.jorudan.co.jp/ is pretty good. I like their Seishun-18 search option.

Their English counterpart does not offer all options available to the Japanese version, but it may be worth exploring. https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/?sub_lang=nosub
by ITO (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/3 00:25
Sad. This week Hyperdia; last week I saw that the Hayato no Kaze (limited express train) has bitten the dust. A couple weeks ago I discovered that one of my favorite hotels is now permanently closed.

We are going to have to get used to the fact that Japan has not remained frozen in time for the last two years. Even absent a major event such as the pandemic, things change over time, but something that disrupts revenue streams this severely is going to have long-term consequences.

For most of us it will just be an inconvenience and we will find workarounds, but I have to feel for the people who have lost their jobs, or worse. (I honestly wonder how some small, family-owned businesses that depend entirely on tourism can possibly get through this.)
by Kim (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/3 00:51
Well this is a shame. I have often wondered what Hitachi were getting out of running it. We have been lucky that they have done so in it's previous form for so long. I guess I'll have to get used to the Navitime interface.
by Stan Norrell rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/3 01:54
Sad Hyperdia stopped using a timetable, it was extremely useful and helped me a lot during my last trip to Japan. Never heard of Jorudan, but tried it out and worked fine. I guess we all have to adapt to the circumstances. It would've been worse if there were no alternatives at all.
by Sophia (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/3 03:27
Really, too bad. It wasn't perfect or ideal (nothing is), but it was quick and easy to use (once you learn about its few quirks).
by Ken (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/3 13:19
Hyperdia was the best. The alternatives are not even close.

https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/

https://japantravel.navitime.com/en/area/jp/route/

Jorudan is limited without paying money.

Navitime is glitchy, sometimes you cannot enter departyre or arrival stations.

JR companies offer their own train search app similar to hyperdia, but only the shinkansens kinda cross over.
by H (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/4 23:20
End of an era for sure.

I've used HyperDia pretty much exclusively in making itineraries for Japanese trips since discovering it back in 2006. I wouldn't have been able to do what I did without it. I've often wondered what would happen if a service like that suddenly changed or disappeared, and now I know. (I'd also had hoped it was an April Fools joke... alas that doesn't seem to be the case.)

Thank you to those who have posted alternatives.
by Richasi (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/5 18:44
It's only in Japanese but the JR o-dekake site is another alternative.

https://www.jr-odekake.net/
by Saru Bob rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/6 21:37
I warned that no Japanese people used Hyperdia a decade ago. Naturally, they have shut down the system
with a prolonged period of no use by foreigners.

I repeat the same thing here: googling 'æ‚芷‚¦,' which means transfer. Note (English) lines below are added just by me.

1. Jorudan
https://www.jorudan.co.jp/
(English) https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/?sub_lang=nosub

2. Yahoo
https://transit.yahoo.co.jp/

3. ekitan
https://ekitan.com/

4. NAVITIME
https://www.navitime.co.jp/transfer/
(English) https://transit.navitime.com/en/jp/

5. goo
https://map.goo.ne.jp/transit/search/

6 dmenu (ekitan)
https://transfer.smt.docomo.ne.jp/norikae/DH1?&top=1

7. ekispert
https://roote.ekispert.net/ja/
(English) https://roote.ekispert.net/en

8. excite
https://www.excite.co.jp/transfer/

9. Jorudan (The same as #1. The most popular. If you read small notes on Google Maps, you would understand that they use Jorudan's data.)
https://www.jorudan.co.jp/norikae/
https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/

10. Yahoo (app)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.yahoo.android.apps...

11. Hyperdia
https://www.hyperdia.com/ja/
(English) https://www.hyperdia.com/en/
"As of March 31, 2022, we will no longer offer timetable search."
by Luisjp rate this post as useful

O-dekake.net has option to exclude nozomi and mizuho 2022/4/9 21:39
Good news: I'm not sure if this has been mentioned anywhere yet or not, but I just discovered that the JR o-dekake site ( https://www.jr-odekake.net/ ) has the option to exclude nozomi and mizuho trains. After you enter your starting and ending stations on the first screen, you go to a page where you specify the conditions for your search. Among your options is a checkbox labeled ‚Ì‚¼‚ÝE‚Ý‚¸‚ق𜂭 (exclude Nozomi/Mizuho).

Not-so-good news: The site is only in Japanese. So this information is of no use to people with no Japanese ability at all. However, for those of us who have a certain degree of proficiency in the language, it's a very useful thing. The o-dekake site is very powerful in general, and this one single feature can save so much time if you are trying to schedule trips anywhere along the line from Tokyo to Kagoshima using a JR pass. Of course, it is a JR site, so if you're looking for non-JR options it won't do you any good, but anyone traveling with a JR pass is going to be looking mainly for JR trains anyway.

I think that anyone with a year of college-level Japanese or the equivalent should be able to at least start using sites like o-dekake. My own middling level of proficiency has been enhanced greatly by struggling with such sites over the years. It can be a little frustrating at first, but the learning curve is very favorable because the reading and usage skills you need are quite limited. You might have to learn a few new kanji, but not really all that many. And you can practice to your heart's content, free of charge and with no possible negative consequences (such as might be encountered by people who manage to book a hotel room through a Japanese site, without knowing enough Japanese to recognize that they have booked a lady's room or a late-arrival plan!).
by Kim (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/4/10 08:02
Using Japanese websites with a browser that provides auto-translate makes most of them usable for people with no/limited Japanese skills. But, as normal, many sites are just one company, not covering the necessary connections that many people need.
by JapanCustomTours rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/6/6 19:10
JR started to charge HyperDia for licensing in Apri (they'd had it for freeup until now for some obscure lopp-holed reason)
Hitachi didn't want to pay the insane amount of licensing money (100–œ‰~ + per month) that JR demanded.
Hitachi removed all train names and times.
ROI is not worth it for Hyperdia. How could they even monetise HyperDia?

HyperDia is not coming back
by anon. (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/11/23 14:33
Those of us who used HYPERDIA in the past would be happy to pay a small fee for its full return to function. None of the alternatives so far have been as good.
by SadTraveller (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: HyperDia is broken. Alternatives? 2022/11/27 21:48
I just realized that after being completely offline for some month, hyperdia is now back online with at least the basic information they started providing in april.

So, maybe there is hope for the service to resume to full service, again? I am not happy with all the other ones available.
by DrRodriges rate this post as useful

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