The Tōkaidō Shinkansen (東海道新幹線) is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen line, opened in 1964 between Tokyo and Shin-Ōsaka. Since 1987 it has been operated by the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), prior to that by Japanese National Railways (JNR). It is the most heavily travelled high-speed rail route in the world by far; its cumulative ridership of 5.3 billion passengers dwarfs all other lines worldwide.
The line was named a joint Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark and IEEE Milestone by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2000.
