I rarely have to leave home early enough to travel during Tokyo’s notorious rush hour, and for this blessing I thank the Shinto gods. We’ve all heard the ghastly stories: about the station staff whose job it is literally to squeeze commuters on to the trains; about carriages so packed that they would choke a sardine; and about the notorious chikan, or gropers, whose filthy fingers inflict misery on female passengers. So it was with trepidation that I rose early the other morning for the 7.30 Tube journey to work.

The train was on the platform as I bounded down the escalator, and the doors were closing as I slipped between them. I gripped the overhead strap and buried my nose in my newspaper. And quickly I became aware of something that surprised me – that travelling on the Tokyo subway in the rush hour isn’t half bad.

There were none of the discomforts I had expected, and in several ways the journey was positively pleasant. Instead of a fetor of armpits and bad breath, the carriage was infused with a light haze of perfume. It was certainly full, but there were no arms poking my ribcage – in fact, my fellow passengers seemed to be going to some trouble to make space for me. A few of them, it's true, looked a bit unfriendly – but at least they weren’t shedding dandruff over my jacket or exhaling last night’s saké into my face. It was only when the guard arrived and firmly escorted me off the train that I understood the explanation for all this – they were all women.

In my haste I had stumbled into a recent feature of life in Tokyo: the women-only carriage, introduced two years ago in response to an escalating groper crisis. Two out of three young women reported that they had been groped – and the railway companies were goaded into action. These days the rearmost carriage on 11 overland and subway lines in Tokyo is reserved for women during the morning crush – and, as I discovered, it is a very relaxing place to be.

A less hurried or oblivious passenger would not have made the mistake – pink stickers on the carriage doors bilingually announce the nomen policy. But I am not the only one to have missed them. The other week, the Japan Federation for the Blind made representations after a number of cases in which visually impaired male commuters had heedlessly sat down in women-only cars, and received a very rough ride from their fellow passengers. In fact, disabled people, including the blind, are permitted into the pink cars – as long as they keep their white canes to themselves.

Chastened by my own mistake, I took my place in the meaty press of the mixed carriage, where all was just as it should be. My back was squashed up against the curving carriage door. The reek of stale tobacco and hair oil rose from the head of the man next to me. But for five precious minutes I had breathed the scent of pinkness and for that, women of Tokyo, I thank you.

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