To improve access to Nagano, the government decided to link Nagano with the high-speed "shinkansen" train network. The Nagano Shinkansen, now the Hokuriku Shinkansen was inaugurated five months before the start of the Games. This reduced by half the travel time between Tokyo and Nagano, to 79 minutes for 221 kilometers. The length of the track between Takasaki Station and Nagano Station is 125.7 km, which includes 63.4 km of tunnels. The high speed train network carried 655,000 passengers during the Games.