## (2) Promotion of Railway Crossing Measures

Unopened grade crossings Note primarily in urban areas are a factor behind crossing accidents and chronic traffic congestion and measures to promptly address this problem are needed. For this reason, the road administrators and railway operators work together to prevent railroad crossing accidents, by developing crossing facilities, such as flyovers, structure improvement, and pedestrian bridges, and through the maintenance of railroad crossing safety equipment, such as railway crossing barriers, based on the Improving the Railway Crossings Act and the 9th traffic basic traffic safety plan.

In FY 2015, immediate measures were implemented for the development of safety equipment and expansion of sidewalks and drastic measures for railroad crossing disposals, through continuous steric intersection measures. This was pursued along with developing safety equipment, which was specified in all three railroad crossings, based on the Railroad Crossing Improvement and Promotion Act.

In collaboration of road administrators and railway operators, the production of safe grade crossing passage records has commenced in accordance with crossing elements, the state of countermeasures, the conditions behind the occurrence of accidents, and other examples of objective data. It was determined that crossing measures shall be promoted on a priority basis by summarizing future measures and policies while visualizing the current state of crossings and roads.

In FY 2016, crossing measures will be further promoted based on the Act on Promotion of Railway Crossings by utilizing a system operated by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism for designating crossings and roads that should be improved in order to designate problematic crossings even in the absence of an agreement by railway operators and road administrators as to the methods by which improvements will be carried out and by undertaking a general mobilization of measures in both structural and non-structural terms, including immediate measures involving the use of colored pavement and measures affecting areas surrounding crossings, such as by way of the development of parking spaces.

## (3) Promoting the Development of Platform Doors

To improve the safety of the visually impaired and other rail station users, the installation of platform doors to prevent falling from the platform is being promoted (installed at 621 stations as of the end of September 2014). In accordance with the Basic Policy on Promoting the Facilitation of Mobility (March 2011), Basic Plan on Transport Policy (February 2015), and Priority Plan for Social Infrastructure Development (September 2015), we are implementing structural measures, such as by promoting the development of platform doors and tactile paving with boundary lines and the development of technologies for new types of platform doors to address the problem that arises when train doors do not line up properly with the platform, as well as non-structural measures, such as by deploying a campaign for improving the behavior of train users through a catch phrase that encourages users to reach out to and help guide visually-impaired riders to where they are supposed to go.

Figure II-7-4-4

Platform door

Source) MLIT

Figure II -7-4-5

Source) MLIT

Figure II-7-4-6