> I'm not aware of any single commuter hub remotely the size of Shinjuku
There certainly isn't one that does the volume of passengers. Shanghai Hongqiao or Beijing South are probably busiest, and they're 3-4x less passengers than Shinjuku.
> Partly this is because of the economic system: Chinese trains are all state-run and centralized, while a large part of why Shinjuku is so busy is that it's a hub for numerous private railways as well.
I think another part of it is also size of network. China is a freaking huge country. It's got like 10-15x as much high speed rail track compared to Japan. It's a lot more distributed.
There certainly isn't one that does the volume of passengers. Shanghai Hongqiao or Beijing South are probably busiest, and they're 3-4x less passengers than Shinjuku.
> Partly this is because of the economic system: Chinese trains are all state-run and centralized, while a large part of why Shinjuku is so busy is that it's a hub for numerous private railways as well.
I think another part of it is also size of network. China is a freaking huge country. It's got like 10-15x as much high speed rail track compared to Japan. It's a lot more distributed.