EDITORIAL: Station platform safety

Hideo Shima (1901-1998), the father of the Shinkansen bullet train service, had warned, "A rail station platform looks like 'a lone bridge cast over a rapid current'--no, far more dangerous than that."

Shima continued to call for measures to secure passenger safety on platforms. His wishes have yet to be fulfilled, and many people have fallen victim to the hazards of the "bridge."

Last week, during Tokyo's evening rush hour at Shinjuku Station on the Keio Line, a 77-year-old university chancellor was killed in an accident caused by a drunken man bumping into a line of people. The chancellor was pushed toward the incoming train and became caught between the train car and the platform.

According to a survey by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 193 accidents occurred last fiscal year in which passengers on platforms or the tracks were killed or injured after being hit by trains.

The figure surged by 80 percent from six years earlier. In recent years, accidents involving drunken passengers have increased dramatically.

Elderly and disabled people feel the most threatened at stations. Last year, at a private railway station in Tokyo, an 81-year-old woman in a wheelchair slid off a tilted platform surface onto the tracks and died. And there seems no end to accidents involving visually impaired people.

Many accidents could be prevented by erecting automatic safety gates or doors on the platforms. But plans for such measures have hardly moved forward.

As of the end of March this year, only 308 stations nationwide were equipped with the safety gates while only 141 had platform doors.

Within urban areas, more railway companies are getting involved in inter-operations of trains. Train doors can be set in a number of different positions, making it difficult for some lines to set up safety doors or gates on the platforms.

The amount of time lost opening and closing the doors during a tight schedule cannot be ignored. Moreover, installing platform safety gates at one station costs several hundred million yen or more, a heavy financial burden that would have to be covered by railway operators.

However, the safety of passengers must not take a backseat to convenience or speed. The central and local governments as well as railway companies should come up with better ways to spread the use of safety gates on platforms.

But would that be enough?

At the same Shinjuku Station platform in the same hour when the university chancellor was killed, passengers wait in triple queues, silently enduring the summer heat. Hardly anyone looks straight ahead.

Most of them view their mobile phone screens and typing messages. Many people listen to their music players, oblivious to the safety warnings that are constantly repeated on the loudspeaker.

It would be difficult for them to notice any danger approaching themselves or others around them.

As the hour grows late, more drunken and tipsy people appear on the platform. It is common these days to see middle-aged men on platforms or inside trains carrying cans of alcoholic beverages and arguing with station staff.

In the public space of railway stations, people have become unguarded, indifferent and unreserved.

Safety gates are certainly indispensable. But passengers must also return to a mind-set of being on guard for potential dangers.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 30