is the main railway company operating in the Chà «bu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and occasionally as JR Tokai (). The term Tà Âkai refers to the Tà Âkai region (the southern portion of Central Japan), in which the company chiefly operates.
JR Central's operational hub is Nagoya Station, and the company's administrative headquarters are located in the JR Central Towers above the building. The busiest and longest railway line operated by JR Central is the Tà Âkaidà  Main Line between and ; this largely parallels the company's high-speed rail service, the Tà Âkaidà  Shinkansen, which runs between and . JR Central is additionally responsible for the Chà «à  Shinkansen â an under-construction maglev service between Tokyo and Osaka, which is due to start operation between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2034.
JR Central is Japan's most profitable and highest throughput high-speed rail operator, carrying 138 million high-speed-rail passengers in 2009, considerably more than the world's largest airline. Japan recorded a total of 289 million high-speed-rail passengers in 2009.
JR Central is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Nagoya Stock Exchange with American depositary receipts traded over-the-counter through OTCMG Pink, is a constituent of the TOPIX Core30 index, and is also one of only three Japan Railways Group constituents of the Nikkei 225 index, the others being JR East and JR West. It is one of Nagoya's gosanke companies along with Toyota and the Chubu Electric Power Company.
The JR Central Group consists of JR Central and the following affiliates: