Japan: Yurikamome

The Yurikamome (Tokyo Waterfront New Transit Waterfront Line) is a automated guideway transit service travels across the Rainbow Bridge into the artificial island of Odaiba into a futuristic Tokyo.

The New Transit Yurikamome (新交通ゆりかもめ), formerly called the Tokyo Waterfront New Transit Waterfront Line (東京臨海新交通臨海線), is the first driverless transit service connecting Shimbashi to Toyosu, via the reclaimed island of Odaiba in Tokyo Bay. The line is named after the black-headed gull, a common denizen of Tokyo Bay and the official metropolitan bird.

Although it looks like a monorail, it actually has rubber-tired wheels on an elevated concrete track guided by the side walls. Riding the Yurikamome via Odaiba gives the impression of being in a science-fiction inspired future city, crossing the Rainbow Bridge across Tokyo Bay and viewing fascinating modern architecture such as the Fuji Television building and the Telecom Centre, as well as the Tokyo Big Sight.

Regarded as a white elephant when it was built (much like Sydney’s ill fated monorail), it would have been perfectly suited for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, as it goes through some of the Olympics sites.

We rode the Yurikamome in 2008, and it really felt like being in a science fiction film, or at least an episode of the Jetsons.