Japan’s railway operators launch campaign to stop violence against train staff
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 01 June, 2016, 5:50pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 01 June, 2016, 5:50pm
Julian Ryall
In recent years, poster campaigns by Japan’s railway operators have called on passengers to be considerate towards other travellers by offering their seat to an elderly person or not having their music too loud.
But the latest ad campaigns are trying to stem the worrying trend of physical attacks – the vast majority of which are unprovoked and unexpected – against train staff.
The new posters use cartoon characters to urge passengers not to punch, head-butt or verbally abuse staff and have been prompted by soaring numbers of incidents aimed at employees.
The nation’s 16 main railway firms recently released statistics from 2015 that show there were 225 attacks against train and station staff during the year. That figure is three times the number of incidents reported in 2000 – the first year such figures were compiled – and above the 200 threshold for the eighth consecutive year.
On May 17, a 49-year-old man was arrested after he took two knives out of a bag on board a bullet train heading for Tokyo from Fukuoka, in the south.
Alerted by other passengers, a female conductor approached the man to ask him to sit down and behave. The woman sustained minor injuries to her hand in the subsequent melee.
Passengers then held the man, identified as Shuichi Nakagawa, until the train made an unscheduled stop and he could be handed over to police.
[Japanese police officers stand guard inside a train. Photo: EPA]
In June 2015, a 71-year-old man poured kerosene over himself directly outside the door of the driver’s compartment on another bullet train and set fire to himself.
Named as Haruo Hayashizaki, he died of his injuries. A woman also died in the blaze, while more than 20 passengers were treated after inhaling smoke and other minor injuries. Police were never able to determine a motive for the incident.
The railway firms’ study into the increasing number of cases of violence directed at their employees also tries to identify the causes. Their report only suggests, however, that most are random and unpredictable.
The largest single explanation was “for no reason”, accounting for 35 per cent of all incidents. Aggressive reactions from drunks was the second most likely case, at 21 per cent, while 13 per cent of incidents occurred when a member of train or station staff went to remonstrate with someone who was being a nuisance to other passengers.
In at least one case, a station employee who had gone to assist someone trying to purchase a ticket from a machine was punched in the face.
The railway industry’s experiences mirror similar increases in crime across Japanese society, with authorities reporting a spike in recent years of violence directed at children and a sharp rise in crimes committed by elderly people.
