Japan Highway Bus Scraper (Kosokubus)

Extracts Japanese intercity highway-bus timetables and fares from Kosokubus.com — Japan's largest bus booking aggregator. Covers Willer Express, all six JR Bus regional subsidiaries (Kanto, Tohoku, Chubu, West, Shikoku, Kyushu), Sakura Kotsu, Keio Bus, Odakyu City Bus, Meitetsu Bus, Kintetsu Bus, Hankyu Bus, and 30+ other operators. Returns structured records per route with seat class, amenities, overnight flag, fares in JPY, and live availability.

Japan Highway Bus Scraper Features

• Search any origin-to-destination prefecture pair using 5-digit prefecture codes (e.g. 00013 for Tokyo, 00027 for Osaka)
• Leave origin/destination blank to crawl all major corridors automatically
• Filter by overnight-only service, seat class (4-row standard, 3-row relax, 2-row executive, Cocoon pod), or female-only seating requirement
• Extracts 26 fields per route including operator name (Japanese + English romaji), all boarding/alighting stops, departure/arrival times, journey duration, fares, amenities, and direct booking URLs
• Cap total results with maxItems to retrieve a quick sample without crawling full corridors
• Runs on residential Japanese proxy for reliable geo-consistent results

Who Uses Japanese Bus Timetable Data?

• Travel aggregators — build or update Japan bus search engines with structured route, fare, and availability data
• Inbound tourism apps — show visitors affordable highway-bus alternatives to Shinkansen, with seat-class breakdowns and overnight options
• JR Pass calculators — surface competing bus fares on covered corridors to help travelers decide whether a pass makes sense
• Transport researchers — map intercity bus networks, track fare changes, or analyse operator coverage by prefecture pair
• Price monitoring tools — alert on fare changes or availability drops for specific corridors

How Japan Highway Bus Scraper Works

1. You supply origin and destination prefecture codes (or leave them blank for major corridors).
2. The scraper fetches the Kosokubus bus-list page for each corridor — a fully server-rendered HTML page listing all routes, no JavaScript needed.
3. Each route card is parsed: operator, stops, seat class, amenities, fares, and availability are extracted and saved as a structured record. Filters (overnight, seat class, female-only) are applied before saving. The scraper stops when maxItems is reached.

Input

{
  "origin": "00013",
  "destination": "00027",
  "overnightOnly": false,
  "seatClass": "any",
  "femaleOnly": false,
  "maxItems": 10
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
origin	String	(blank)	Origin prefecture code. 00013 = Tokyo, 00027 = Osaka, 00026 = Kyoto. Leave blank for major corridors.
destination	String	(blank)	Destination prefecture code. Leave blank to crawl all destinations from the given origin.
overnightOnly	Boolean	false	When true, returns only overnight services (depart evening, arrive morning).
seatClass	String	"any"	Minimum seat class: any, 4row, 3row, 2row, or pod (Cocoon).
femaleOnly	Boolean	false	When true, returns only routes with a female-only seating area.
maxItems	Integer	10	Maximum route records to return.
proxyConfiguration	Object	Residential JP	Apify proxy config. Residential Japan proxy is strongly recommended for geo-consistent results.

Tokyo to Osaka — First 5 Routes

{
  "origin": "00013",
  "destination": "00027",
  "maxItems": 5
}

Overnight Buses Only — Tokyo to Nagoya

{
  "origin": "00013",
  "destination": "00023",
  "overnightOnly": true,
  "maxItems": 20
}

All Routes from Osaka — No Destination Filter

{
  "origin": "00027",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Japan Highway Bus Scraper Output Fields

{
  "trip_id": "express-dream-goto",
  "operator": "ジェイアールバス関東",
  "operator_en": "JR Bus Kanto",
  "route_name": "ドリームなごや号",
  "origin_terminal": "東京駅八重洲南口",
  "origin_terminal_en": "",
  "origin_city": "東京",
  "destination_terminal": "名古屋駅新幹線口",
  "destination_terminal_en": "",
  "destination_city": "愛知",
  "departure_time": "23:00",
  "arrival_time": "06:30",
  "duration_minutes": 450,
  "is_overnight": true,
  "seat_class": "4-row standard",
  "seats_per_row": 4,
  "amenities": ["outlet", "toilet"],
  "female_only_seats": false,
  "fare_yen": 3800,
  "fare_yen_max": 5200,
  "seats_available": 12,
  "has_toilet": true,
  "stops": ["東京駅八重洲南口 (23:00)", "浜松 (02:45)", "名古屋駅新幹線口 (06:30)"],
  "booking_url": "https://www.kosokubus.com/bus_detail_rosen/express-dream-goto/",
  "scrape_url": "https://www.kosokubus.com/bus_list/00013/00023/"
}

Field	Type	Description
trip_id	String	Internal route code from Kosokubus
operator	String	Operator name in Japanese
operator_en	String	Operator name in English / romaji
route_name	String	Marketed route name (Japanese)
origin_terminal	String	First boarding stop name (Japanese)
origin_terminal_en	String	First boarding stop name (romaji) — populated when available
origin_city	String	Origin prefecture name
destination_terminal	String	Final alighting stop name (Japanese)
destination_terminal_en	String	Final alighting stop name (romaji) — populated when available
destination_city	String	Destination prefecture name
departure_time	String	Scheduled departure time in JST (HH:MM)
arrival_time	String	Scheduled arrival time in JST (HH:MM)
duration_minutes	Integer	Total journey duration in minutes
is_overnight	Boolean	true if this is an overnight service
seat_class	String	One of: 4-row standard, 3-row relax, 2-row executive, Cocoon pod
seats_per_row	Integer	Number of seats per row (2, 3, or 4)
amenities	Array	Amenities: wifi, outlet, toilet, blanket, slippers, reading_light, curtain_divider, female_only_area
female_only_seats	Boolean	true if a female-only seating area is available
fare_yen	Integer	Minimum fare in JPY
fare_yen_max	Integer	Maximum fare in JPY when a range is shown
seats_available	Integer	Available seats at scrape time
has_toilet	Boolean	true if toilet is on board
stops	Array	All intermediate stops with departure times: "Stop Name (HH:MM)"
booking_url	String	Direct booking detail URL on kosokubus.com
scrape_url	String	Source bus-list page URL

Prefecture Code Reference

The most common origin/destination codes:

Code	Prefecture
00013	Tokyo (東京)
00027	Osaka (大阪)
00026	Kyoto (京都)
00023	Aichi / Nagoya (愛知)
00040	Fukuoka (福岡)
00014	Kanagawa / Yokohama (神奈川)
00011	Saitama (埼玉)
00012	Chiba (千葉)
00028	Hyogo / Kobe (兵庫)
00034	Hiroshima (広島)

Codes follow the pattern 00001 (Hokkaido) through 00047 (Okinawa).

FAQ

How many routes can this scraper collect? Kosokubus lists all routes on a single corridor page with no pagination — typically 1 to 20 routes per prefecture pair. Active corridor count across all pairs is estimated at 1,000 to 3,000 routes nationwide. A full multi-corridor run returns proportionally more.

Does it handle all operators? The scraper extracts whichever operators Kosokubus lists for a given corridor. Willer Express, all six JR Bus subsidiaries, Sakura Kotsu, Keio Bus, Odakyu City Bus, Meitetsu Bus, Kintetsu Bus, and Hankyu Bus all appear in typical runs.

How fresh is the data? Timetable data (routes, stops, durations) is static and updated seasonally. Availability (seats remaining) and fares change daily — run the scraper on your schedule to keep those fields current.

What does it cost to run? Each run has a $0.10 start fee plus $0.001 per route record. A 100-route run costs roughly $0.20. A full 1,000-route corpus costs around $1.10.

Why do I need a Japanese residential proxy? Kosokubus returns geo-consistent content to Japanese IPs. Without a JP proxy, some corridors may return empty results or slightly different data. The scraper defaults to Apify residential proxy with country set to Japan.

Need More Features?

Need custom filters, additional fields, or a different target site? File a request or get in touch.

Why Use Japan Highway Bus Scraper?

• 26 structured fields per route — operator, stops, seat class, amenities, fares, and availability in one clean record, ready for import without manual cleanup
• All major operators — Willer, JR Bus (all 6 regionals), Sakura Kotsu, Keio, Odakyu, Meitetsu, and 30+ more on a single platform
• Flexible scoping — single corridor, all destinations from one origin, or full major-corridor sweep, all controlled from the same input
• No JavaScript rendering needed — Kosokubus serves full HTML, so the scraper is fast and lightweight on 256 MB memory