Saori Yataka is a supervisor in the MaaS Division of the Marketing Headquarters at JR East. She joined the company in 2012 and has devoted most of her career in the field of customer service and tourism.
During the first 5 years she worked in the Tohoku region as a station staff, train conductor, and driver. She went on to work in the Customer Service Department of the Sendai Office, and cooperated with staff and crew in order to improve services based on customer feedback.
She was then appointed to join a travel agency of the JR East Group, and worked in the division of inbound tourism. Her work included focusing on improving the travel experiences of visitors from abroad to Japan. She has held her current role since February 2022.
She has a master’s degree in Tourism from Hokkaido University and has also completed her MBA in France.
Sessions
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June 05: Mobility for low-density areas: Building a new MaaS vision
JR EAST's MaaS Evolves with Local Needs
JR EAST has been focusing on MaaS since 2018. We offer two types of MaaS services. 1) In urban areas, our "JR East App" provides high-performance route search using real-time information; 2) in rural areas, we are developing MaaS focused on tourism. Both aim to provide one-stop service for gathering information, making purchases and settling accounts related to travel. In rural areas, where transportation is insufficient, we have started operating a new mobility service DRT (Demand-Responsive Transport). While our DRT was firstly designed for tourism, today we also consider making our service respond to the needs of local residents. Our attentive operation and high ridership have been appreciated by local stakeholders. Therefore, our latest DRT service in Kakunodate Town has become a joint operation that receives funding from the local government. We will continue to reflect stakeholder needs in our MaaS to further improve and provide sustainable services.
