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08 Apr, 2023

How can you protect yourself from a series of injuries on trains?

On October 31st, an injury occurred on an inbound limited express train on the Keio Line running in Chofu City, Tokyo, and on November 6th on a down train running on the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line. A man with a knife was arrested, and on November 8, there was an attempted arson attack on a JR Kyushu/Kyushu Shinkansen train running through Kumamoto Prefecture. Recently, there have been many incidents of injuries caused by knives on trains and arson incidents in a short period of time. How should we act to protect ourselves in the car?

There have been a series of incidents in train cars, but the most terrifying thing is that the crime was committed in a closed room while the train was running. Therefore, if you encounter an incident on a train, I would like to introduce effective measures to protect yourself, as well as crime prevention measures that are being used overseas.

Pressing the SOS button is the top priority

First of all, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has installed an emergency call device, which is a safety device in principle, for each railway vehicle, and an emergency device that can be manually opened. A ministerial ordinance requires the installation of door cocks, fire extinguishers, etc. These facilities are installed on the assumption that users will use them.

If you are actually in danger, please press the emergency call device or SOS button first. By pressing this button, it will be transmitted to the conductor and the driver, and you will be able to contact them like a telephone. At this time, if it is a recent train, the car number is displayed on the monitor in the driver's cab. Vehicles without monitors will have their number lights on. I've seen numbers lined up on public address equipment, so I think it's probably about this.

In addition, pressing this button activates a buzzer and lights a lamp, etc. Although the operation varies depending on the railway operator, it is possible to notify the surroundings of an emergency. And I want you to run away as far away as possible.

Emergency notification devices are installed in different locations depending on each vehicle, but they are generally located near the entrance/exit/door, next to the connecting part/pass-through door, or near the priority seats.

Next, what should I do in the event of a fire such as arson?

Even in the case of a fire, it is most important to leave the scene immediately. Japanese railcars are stipulated to have a flame-retardant structure that is difficult to burn as a fire countermeasure. be.

However, in some cases, it is possible to use a fire extinguisher to fight the fire. The location of the fire extinguisher is also different depending on each vehicle, but it is often installed near the connecting part of the vehicle or near the priority seat.

The specifications and installation locations of these emergency safety devices vary depending on the railway operator, and it may be difficult to find them immediately in an emergency. In particular, subway lines that have mutual direct service are more difficult because various types of trains enter. In the future, we will have to pursue and solve these problems.

What should you do during an emergency stop?

So, what should you do if the train has to make an emergency stop due to a raid or fire?

First of all, I would like you to wait for the crew's instructions and act. If the vehicle door does not open when escaping out of the vehicle according to the instructions of the crew, please use the emergency door cock mentioned at the beginning. It is usually located at the top near the vehicle door (sometimes under the seat, for example) and you can manually open the vehicle door by pulling a red lever.

A series of train injuries How can you protect yourself?</p><p>What I learned from interviewing several railway operators is that when this emergency door cock is used, the pilot lamp on the cab goes off and the driver manually brakes. In other words, basically the brakes are not applied automatically (some vehicles are different). If the emergency cock is used, the train will not restart unless the cock is returned.</p><p>For this reason, as a general rule, the emergency door cock is used when the vehicle is stopped. This is because there is a high risk of a fall accident or being run over by an oncoming train while the train is running. Basically, it would be best to wait for instructions from the crew.</p><p>Emergency door cocks are often used for inspections at factories and for cleaning the inside of trains at stations. Both are operated by the staff, and passengers usually do not touch them.</p><p>Originally, railroad car doors were manual since the opening of the railroad. The trains that were born in the Taisho era were also manual, but trains with automatic doors appeared in the beginning of the Showa era. However, since the driver's cab has a door opening and closing device, the door must be opened and closed from the cab every time inspection or cleaning is performed at the depot. In order to save the trouble, door cocks were installed in each vehicle. Of course, since it is assumed that the staff will operate it, the position was not displayed.</p><p>However, this led to disaster. In the 1951 Sakuragicho accident caused by a car fire, 106 people died because they did not know how to open and close the door. Since then, the position of the emergency door cock has been clearly marked inside the car, but this time in 1962, a catastrophe occurred when the door was opened and the train got off on the tracks.</p><p>In the so-called Mikawashima accident, an outbound freight train heading in the same direction and a train collided and derailed. Learning from the Sakuragicho accident, the passengers used the emergency door cock to go outside and started evacuating by walking along the inbound line, but the inbound train entered. I applied the brakes suddenly, but I couldn't make it in time, and I collided with the derailed train while hitting pedestrians one after another. At that time, 160 people died.</p><p>Using emergency door cocks can be exacerbated in some situations. It is also necessary to remember that</p><h2 id=Using an emergency door cock while driving?

Do you ever use the emergency door cock while driving?

This also depends on the situation. For example, if a passenger's hand is caught in the door and is dragged and moved, first press the SOS button to bring the train to an emergency stop, then use the emergency door cock to open the door and remove the person's hand. seems to be an effective tool. In fact, there has been an accident in which a person was caught in a train door, dragged, and fell from the platform to his death. If you witness such a situation, it seems best to press the SOS button without hesitation and then rescue with the emergency door cock.

However, more and more stations are now equipped with platform doors. In the worst case, it is better to press the emergency button (platform door emergency open button) provided on the platform door (the location of the emergency button on the platform door differs depending on the station).

The safety devices in railroad cars were generally unknown until a series of repeated injury incidents occurred.

The time has come when railway operators must actively appeal that they have equipment such as emergency call devices, fire extinguishers, and emergency door cocks. In addition, information such as how to use the equipment will also have to be disseminated.

In addition, during the incident on the Keio Line, the passenger who pressed the emergency call device ran away from the place where the device was located without saying anything, so the crew did not know what was happening. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) stipulates that if multiple notification devices are pressed, it will be determined as an emergency even if it is not possible to communicate with passengers, the train will be stopped immediately, and the position of the platform door and train door will be determined during emergency response. In the event that the door is misaligned, the basic response is to open the door and guide the passengers.

If three buttons for fire, incident, sudden illness, etc. are installed under the emergency call device, even if passengers cannot talk, the crew can easily grasp the content by simply pressing it. I think that it will be a solution for quick judgment.

Also, we who use it regularly should always check where the emergency equipment is in the vehicle. I don't know what will happen when. If you do image training on a regular basis, you should be able to act to protect yourself as much as possible in an emergency.

Are there any overseas examples?

Finally, as an example of crime prevention measures being taken overseas, there are examples of the Caltrain, a medium-distance train that runs in San Francisco, USA, and the BERT subway that also runs in the San Francisco Bay Area. (BART).

Basically, Caltrain, which does not open the windows, can be removed by twisting the red lever attached to the window inside the car in case of an emergency. Because it is dangerous, of course it is limited to when the train is stopped, but it is one of the effective countermeasures that Japan does not have. In fact, in the past, it was used in some Japanese National Railways cars, but the opening and closing type became the mainstream, and it seems that the falling type was later modified to the opening and closing type.

Additionally, Bart has a constant patrol of police officers on the premises as a human-eye enhancement measure. Even in Japan, there are many patrols by security guards on Shinkansen bullet trains, especially on the Tokaido Shinkansen, which is so frequent that you can see the appearance of security guards many times.

In train crimes that happen every day, suspects are never afraid to be caught. Therefore, it seems that reinforcement measures by human eyes such as security guards and crew members, which lead to the prevention of crimes, are much more effective than in-vehicle security cameras.

Of course, human augmentation is the most expensive. However, no matter how much the system evolves, money and people are indispensable for safety. It reminds me of the "Railway Public Security Officer" that was once introduced by the Japanese National Railways (currently JR). In order to minimize the damage, it may be necessary to consider such measures.

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