The station coin locker, and what to do when every one is full

It is a little before eleven on a Saturday at Kyoto Station, on the Hachijō (八条口) side where the shinkansen lets out, and every door in the locker bank beside the gates shows red. A man in a cycling jacket walks the length of it twice, tapping the touch panel as if it might change its mind. Check-in at his ryokan is hours away. The case he is dragging is the kind that turns a temple morning into a slow, rattling chore.

Reading a bank of lockers

Station lockers are called koin rokkā (コインロッカー), a name that has outlived the coins on many machines. You will meet two broad types. The older ones have a key in each door and a coin slot beside it. You drop in change, turn the key and carry it off, so a pocket of small coins matters more than the notes in your wallet. The newer ones have no keys at all, only a central touch panel, often with an English button, that asks you to pick a door, choose how to pay and confirm.

Sizes run from small cubbies that take a daypack to tall compartments along the bottom row that will take a full-size suitcase. Every bank has fewer large doors than small ones, and the large ones go first. On touch-panel models, a coloured lamp or the on-screen map of the bank shows which doors are free. On key models, an empty locker still has its key in the lock. The daily charge is printed on each door or on the panel and varies by size and station, so read it before you load.

When your IC card is the key

On many touch-panel lockers, and on some key models that have been refitted, a transit IC card such as Suica (スイカ) or ICOCA (イコカ) does double duty. You tap it to pay, and that card becomes the key. To open the door later, you tap it again on the reader. It is quick, but it ties your luggage to one object. A second card, a partner's card or a different phone will not open it.

That is the trap for anyone carrying their card in a phone wallet. If you locked with Mobile Suica on a phone now at four per cent, the luggage waits until you find a charger. Lockers that take cash usually print a slip with a PIN instead, and that slip is worth photographing before it goes into a pocket full of conbini receipts. Check how the day is counted, too. On many machines the charge rolls over at a fixed hour, such as midnight, rather than twenty-four hours after you lock, so a bag left in the evening and collected the next morning can cost two days. The panel or the sticker on the door says which rule applies.

Where the empty ones hide

Lockers next to the busiest gates fill first, because everyone stepping off a train with a case sees them first. Walk away from the crowd. At Tokyo Station (東京駅), the banks near the Yaesu (八重洲) shinkansen gates are the obvious target. The Marunouchi (丸の内) side and the long underground passages toward the surrounding office towers tend to have more room. At Kyoto Station, try the Karasuma exit (烏丸口) on the north side and the subway concourse below before you give up on Hachijō.

空きロッカーは、改札からいちばん遠い出口のそばに残っていることが多い。

Roughly translated: free lockers are often near the exit furthest from the ticket gates. Another approach is to stop short of the terminal. If your day is in Higashiyama (東山), a locker at a smaller station on the way, or at a subway station near where you will actually walk, is often emptier than the main station. The same thinking works at Shinjuku (新宿). The lockers inside the JR gates are a scrum, while those along the underground malls toward the west exit (西口), or at a nearby Toei or Tokyo Metro station, are usually quieter. Operators' station maps mark lockers with a small pictogram, and some locker companies show live availability for their own banks.

The counter and the conbini

Big stations usually have a staffed baggage room as well, signed tenimotsu ichiji azukari (手荷物一時預かり). Some are run by the station, others by a nearby shop or a delivery company. They take cases that will not fit in any locker and give you a claim tag in return. Their hours are shorter than the station's, so check the closing time before you leave on a long day trip. In tourist districts, apps that arrange storage at cafés and shops are another option, booked and paid for in advance.

Often the cleaner solution is not to carry the case at all. At a conbini such as Lawson (ローソン), FamilyMart (ファミリーマート) or Seven-Eleven (セブン-イレブン), the register can send a parcel through a delivery carrier, a service most people call takkyūbin (宅急便). You fill in a paper waybill, or denpyō (伝票), with the hotel's address, your name as it appears on the booking and your check-in date in the notes. The clerk measures or weighs the case and takes payment. Which carriers each chain handles varies, and the cost depends on size and distance. Next-day delivery between nearby cities is common but not guaranteed, so send it the morning before you need it and email the hotel so the front desk expects it. Many hotel desks will send a case for you on the same kind of form.

Before you go

Plan around the calendar. Lockers at major stations are fullest on weekend and holiday mornings and through the long breaks: Golden Week in spring, Obon in mid-August and the New Year holidays. On those days a whole bank can show red well before ten. Decide in advance. Either send the case ahead by takkyūbin, or leave it at the hotel you are checking out of, which many will hold until evening if you ask at the desk.

For sizes, costs and locations, start with the station operator's own map: JR East (JR東日本) for Tokyo and the north, JR West (JR西日本) for Kyoto and Osaka, and the subway operator for its own stations. The price for each size is on the door. The rollover rule, and the number of days before staff clear a locker, are on the panel or a sticker, and the station office can confirm them.

The mistake to avoid is forgetting where you left it. Large stations have dozens of locker banks that look alike, and the one you found in a hurry at the south end of the Yaesu side is a long walk from the north end. Before you walk away, photograph the door number, the bank's label and the nearest yellow exit sign. Most units also show a phone number for the locker company. If a card will not open the door or a PIN slip goes missing, call that number rather than asking at the ticket gate.