Okinawa Urban Monorail


The Okinawa Urban Monorail, also known as Yui Rail, is a monorail line serving the cities of Naha and Urasoe, Okinawa, Japan. Operated by Okinawa Urban Monorail, Inc., it opened on August 10, 2003, and is the only public rail system in Okinawa Prefecture. Yui Rail is the first rail line on Okinawa since World War II. As Okinawa is the island of Japan lying farthest to the south and west that has an active rail line, Akamine Station and Naha Airport Station, the southernmost and westernmost rail stations in Japan respectively, lie on this line. It uses the OKICA as its contactless smart card, and integrates with Suica and other major Japanese IC cards from 10 March 2020.

Yui Rail

The monorail's "Yui Rail" brand name and logo were selected in a public competition. It consists of 19 stations, from in the west to in the east, running via Naha. The average distance between stations is 0.93 kilometers. It takes 37 minutes and costs ¥370 to traverse its 17 km length.
Trains are made up of two cars, with 65 seats and a total capacity of 165 people. Trains runs on an elevated track between 8 and 20 meters above the ground, with a top speed of 65 km/h and an actual average speed of 28 km/h counting stops.

Urasoe Extension

After lengthy deliberation of possible route options, the monorail corporation applied for construction permission for a 4.1-kilometer, 4-station extension from Shuri Station to Tedako-Uranishi Station in August 2011. Permission was granted on January 26, 2012, with construction planned to start in March 2013. Revenue operation along the extension started on October 1, 2019, using a revised schedule with extended rush hour headways for opening day.
Preliminary ridership data from the first week showed that year-on-year ridership was up after the extension opened on Oct. 1.

Stations