OSAKA -- Railway companies are introducing nursing care services in an attempt to cash in on Japan's aging population and on the potentially lucrative elderly market.
They are also trying to take the fullest possible advantage of their image as firms that cater to the local community. Kinki Nippon Railway Co., which runs the Kintetsu lines that serve Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Wakayama, Mie and Aichi prefectures, in January last year launched an Osaka-based nursing-care service firm called Kintetsu Smile.
Kintetsu Smile operates day-care centers for the elderly and dispatches nurses to their homes.