yet arrived at the desired track the program returns to step s34 in order to calculate the number n of tracks once more then the succeeding steps are executed when the optical pickup 5 has arrived at the desired track at step s38 the search process ends since according to the embodiment the track information is read subsequent to the track jump operations of precisely n times track information is read less frequently accordingly the access time is minimized over that of conventional systems in which track information is read unconditionally after each and every track jump the present invention is not limited by the above embodiment in which it is determined as at step s35 whether the number of tracks remaining is ten or less and singular track jump operations are performed precisely for each of the remaining tracks another embodiment according to the present invention may include operations in which it is determined whether the remaining track number is fifty or less is and then a combination of incremental track jump operations such as a one track jump operation a three track jump operation or a five track jump operation etc is performed the present invention can be applied to cd i cd wo cd mo cd v and cd audio for 8 cm or 12 cm optical.