### Part 2. Railway Transport

### Chapter 1. Trends in Railway Accidents

The long-term decline in the number of railway accidents is continuing as a result of the implementation of a comprehensive safety strategy involving the promotion of measures to prevent level crossing accidents, installation and upgrading of operational safety systems, improvements to control equipment and higher training standards. In 1999 a total of 904 railway accidents occurred, resulting in 689 casualties (338 fatalities). (See Fig. 13)

Looking at accidents by type, 51.0% involved destruction on level crossings, 37.8% involved human casualties, and 8.3% involved destruction on the roadway.

### Chapter 2. Measures to Address Accidents in Tunnels Caused by Falling Concrete and Railway Disruptions in the Metropolitan District

### 1. Measures to prevent accidents in tunnels caused by falling concrete

To address concerns about a spate of accidents that occurred in railway tunnels in 1999, an investigation was launched into the cause of the accidents and a review was made on how to

2. Fatalities are defined as deaths occurring within 24 hours of the accident.

maintain and manage tunnels to prevent similar accidents in the future. After receiving a report on the results of comprehensive safety inspections by West Japan Railway Company, the Transportation Safety Strategy Conference was held. The conference verified the assessment made by West Japan Railway Company and instructed all railway companies throughout Japan to urgently perform comprehensive inspections of all the railway tunnels they are using.

### 2. Measures to address railway disruptions in the metropolitan district

After a string of railway disruptions last year (mainly in the Tokyo metropolitan area) resulting from troubles in operating systems, extended power outages caused by lightning, etc., the Ministry of Transport issued a warning letter to railway companies. The letter instructed the companies to improve the problem detection capabilities of their operating systems, and to educate and train staff to deal with abnormalities such as power failures more quickly.

### Chapter 3. Major Railway Safety Measures

### 1. Measures to prevent railway-crossing accidents

A variety of railway safety enhancement initiatives have been undertaken in accordance with the Sixth Comprehensive Crossing Accident Prevention Measures, including the construction of new overpasses and underpasses, structural improvements, and the installation of new safety equipment. Currently, efforts are in progress to consolidate roads intersecting railway lines.

### 2. Other traffic safety measures

## (1) Improvements to track facilities and signal safety equipment

While promoting improvements to railway track facilities and signal safety equipment, the government is also issuing guidelines on enhanced training standards for railway crews in the area of basic operating procedures, adherence to duty, operational reliability, operations management, and programming and development of Automatic Train Stop (ATS) and Centralized Train Control (CTC) systems.

## (2) Improving the earthquake resistance of railway facilities and equipment

To make existing railway facilities and equipment more earthquake resistant, a range of construction projects are being carried out on overhead bridges and abutments, on the central columns and bridges in “cut and cover” tunnels on Shinkansen (bullet train) lines, and on heavily used sections of standard railway lines. By the end of FY1998, earthquake resistance work had been completed on all Shinkansen lines and approximately 70% of standard lines.