Travelers arriving from overseas can now catch a train to downtown Tokyo from Narita airport in cars reserved specifically for them on a major train line operated by Keisei Electric Railway Co.

Incoming visitors and returnees previously had to travel by cab or private car to comply with government requests to avoid public transportation to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

But the Keisei Skyliner started a service Monday that will see it make 15 trips a day from the airport in Chiba Prefecture to Tokyo's Ueno station with the front cars of each train reserved for such travelers, the company said. The cars are disinfected after each run, while adjacent cars are kept empty.

The same day, the government suspended new entries into Japan by nonresident foreign nationals arriving from most of the world through the end of January.

The new restriction comes as a potentially more transmissible coronavirus variant, first detected in Britain, has been confirmed in many other countries including Japan.

==Kyodo

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