The average age of bus drivers across Japan is around 56, and more than one in four of them are 60 or older, surveys show.

The aging of bus drivers amid chronic labor shortages in the transport industry has raised serious concerns about traffic safety.

The labour ministry’s annual Basic Survey on Wage Structure showed the average age of all workers in Japan rose from 41.3 in 2010 to 44.4 in 2025. 

But bus drivers have aged much more rapidly, from 46.5 to 56.0 over the same period.

Figures of the Nihon Bus Association also show that more than 19,000 bus drivers across Japan were aged 60 or older as of 2024.

That represents about 26.1 percent of bus drivers employed by the 700 or so businesses that responded to the association’s survey. The ratio is up sharply from 10.8 percent in 2003.

Statistics from the National Police Agency’s Traffic Bureau show the percentage of drivers aged 75 or older who caused fatal traffic accidents was twice the ratio among drivers under 75.

Elderly drivers are more prone, for example, to mistakenly press the gas pedal instead of the brakes, NPA officials said.

Older drivers caused a succession of fatal bus accidents in May.

A microbus operated by a 68-year-old man crashed into a roadside guardrail along the Banetsu Expressway in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, on May 6, killing a senior high school student.

A man and a woman died after being hit by another microbus driven by an 85-year-old at an intersection in Nagoya’s Minami Ward on May 29. 

Bus companies have chronically been short-staffed.

The Nihon Bus Association estimates the number of bus drivers will drop from 108,000 in 2024 to only 93,000 in 2030, 36,000 short of the required number.

-The Asahi Shimbun