New Year's Eve Rescue Bus Sweeps In to Save Japanese Revelers

A new transportation service introduced by the Tokyo city administration is expected to help drunk and sleepy office workers get home safely after partying with colleagues on New Year's Eve.

A long-standing tradition among Japanese office workers, the so called bonenkai ("forget-the-year-gathering") party on New Year's Eve, often results in people who had a bit too much to drink dozing off while commuting home, missing their stops and generally having a bad experience. In order to address this problem, Tokyo authorities have introduced the so-called Oversleeping Rescue Bus to help the sleepy revelers.