The JR published a new schedule for Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen in February 2020. The new schedule will be effective on 3/14/2020. The key changes are:

• Speed will be increased from 270 km/h to 285 km/h on all trains on Tokaido Shinkansen
• Nozomi will run 12 times an hour max (additional 2 trains) on Tokaido Shinkansn
• Travel time will be reduced

The speed and acceleration on all trains will increase from 270 km/h to 285 km/h and 2 km/h/s^2 to 2.6 km/h/s^2 respectively. Currently most Kodamas are running on the schedule designed for the 700 series trains. The Kodamas on the new schedule allows the acceleration and top speed of the N700 series trains resulting in a reduction of travel time between each station by 1 minute. As you can see from the chart below the Kodamas on average reduced travel time between Tokyo and Nagoya by 4 to 7 minutes.

The added benefit of speeding up the slower trains is minimizing slow down of Nozomi. Nozomi trains on average will save trip time between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka by 4 minutes. The average speed will be increased from 216.7 km/h to 222.5 km/h. It is remarkable that JR Central can manage to add 2 extra Nozomis and reduce trip time per the new 2020 schedule. As you can see from the table, they added 2 peak time trains on the 18th and 39th of an hour.

Per the new schedule, a Shin-Osaka bound Kodama will be overtaken by 19 faster trains such as Nozomi and Hikari. Comparing to the old schedule, there will be 6 more overtakers yet the travel time between the 2 cities will be reduced by 3 minutes. The table below shows stations where Hikari and Kodama are overtaken by Nozomi trains and departure time of the trains from Tokyo station. If you look at the Kodama that leaves every 57th minute of an hour, that train

In conclusion I’m glad that JR Central managed to add 2 extra trains per hour on the Tokaido Shinkansen line and reduce trip time between Tokyo to Shin-Osaka by 4 minutes. Over all the new schedule is really good and it will surely reduce peak hour crowing. It is unclear how the new schedule will evolve once the new N700S trains are in service. In 2019, the N700s traveled between Maibara and Kyoto at 360 km/h therefore it is possible that the speed on that section to be increased upto 330 km/h. I guess we shall see once the N700s is in service in July 2020.