Originally Posted by
jib71
...For long distance rail journeys, it might be possible to influence foreign visitors to travel at times when the rail services are underutilized - and disincentivize travel at weekends or national holidays, when capacity is stretched, even with additional trains laid on.....
Do tourists tend to travel at peak commuter hours anyway? On the trains that matter? When I think of my own travel patterns while touristing, I tend not to get up that early and want to cram in with tons of commuters. Unless we're thinking of tourists taking up reserved slots in advance that others actually need to get to work.
But it's still a useful idea.
For Shinkansen I guess it would be simple enough to implement the pricing. For regular old commuter trains, I guess the tickets would need to be coded: "Enter after 9am" or "Exit by 5pm" something like that.