Japan Railway Research Articles

Economic impact analysis of developing the JR Haneda Airport Access Line

The East Japan Railway Company is planning a new access railway line to the Tokyo International (Haneda) Airport. This paper proposes an evaluation method for the development of the new airport access line considering the socioeconomic characteristics of the Greater Tokyo Area and indicates what is needed to increase its social value. As the evaluation method, we develop an econometric model that considers commuters’ trip behaviors across prefectures and the relationship between the increased number of Meeting, Incentive Travel, Convention, Exhibition and Event (MICE) visitors and the regional economy. We also conduct a simulation analysis using an empirical econometric model and a cost-effectiveness analysis based on multiple scenarios. The results indicate that a 50% increase in MICE visitors is needed to make the present discounted value of the total increase in the gross regional product larger than the construction cost of the line.

Employing a hybrid model based on texture-biased convolutional neural networks and edge-biased vision transformers for anomaly detection of signal bonds

The railway system of Japan plays a vital role in the national transportation network. A key issue in public transport safety is anomaly detection in railways. Lately, developing robust algorithms and methods for anomaly detection has become the premier task in this field. Recently introduced approaches based on convolutional neural networks, generative adversarial networks, and vision transformers (ViTs) have remarkably improved the research in anomaly detection. Our work proposes a high-performance module for the anomaly detection of signal bonds. First, we present an overview of the proposed module; then, the object detection model and the proposed hybrid classification model based on texture-biased convolutional neural networks and edge-biased ViTs are introduced. Finally, the proposed anomaly detection module is evaluated for accuracy using the dataset from the East Japan Railway Company and the receiver operating characteristic curve. The results show that our proposed module achieves a better performance on real-life data than the two methods that were combined to generate it, raising hope toward possible usage in other areas as well.

Analisis Sejarah dan Perkembangan Perkeretaapian di Jepang

This research discusses the history of Japanese railways and the factors causing the progress of railways in Japan. The research method used in this research is descriptive qualitative. The data collection technique used in this research is a literature study or literature review. The data in this research were taken from journals, books, documentation, internet and literature that discussed the topic being researched. The results of this study are the history of Japanese railways starting in 1872 at the beginning of Japan's new era, namely the Meiji era. Japan learned the rail system from England. Initially, the railroads in Japan were under the auspices of one company, namely JNR, due to go into liquidation, Japan was forced to make JNR a private company, JNR changed its name to JR and is divided into 9 companies to this day. While the factor for the advancement of Japanese railways is Japan's long experience in the world of railways, which is more than 150 years, Japan dares to take risks in the development of railways, Japan is able to overcome competition with private railroad companies, and finally, the Japanese people are disciplined and punctual.

Japanese and Indonesian Prohibitive Expressions on Prohibition Signs at Train Stations: A Linguistic Landscape Study

This article focuses on the expressions of prohibition signs in Japan and Indonesia. Based on the Politeness Theory of Brown Levinson (1987), consideration for the other conversation participants is expected if the speaker tells them not to do something in personal communication. In contrast, the expressions on prohibition signs in public spaces did not need such consideration and can be done “without redressive, baldly”. However, many prohibitions signs use polite expressions. Japanese has “keigo” system that adjusts the usage of vocabulary depending on whom the listener is, while Indonesian does not have that system although polite expression is commonly used. This article aims to resolve those differences and compares the expression of prohibitions signs, especially in train stations, which displayed many prohibited signs from cautions, and manners expressions. The data in this study were collected at Tokyo station-Tokyo and Osaka station-Osaka in Japan, and Gambir station-Jakarta and Gubeng station-Surabaya in Indonesia. The results found that the prohibition signs at railway stations in Indonesia used prohibitive expressions with and without honorific expressions almost equally. On the other hand, Japan’s railway stations used more prohibitive expressions with honorifics on their prohibition signs. In Japan railway stations, the use of honorific expressions on prohibition signs is part of their service and to appeal that they are a railway company with good service.

Source Apportionment and Risk Assessment of Soil Heavy Metals due to Railroad Activity Using a Positive Matrix Factorization Approach

The effects of railway operation on soil environments are an important topic. In this research, soil samples were collected from two diesel-driven railways and two electric railways in Japan. A positive matrix factorization (PMF) model was applied to investigate the sources of eight heavy metals in the soil near the railways. The results showed that railway operation was the dominant anthropogenic source of heavy metals in the soil in the study areas among five potential sources, with contributions ranging from 11.73% to 42.55%. Compared with that of electricity-driven railways, the effect of diesel-driven railways was larger. The environmental risk-assessment analysis suggested that the soils near the selected railways fall within the weak-to-extremely strong contamination category, and experienced moderate-to-extremely strong ecological risk. A health risk assessment revealed that the soil presented both noncarcinogenic and carcinogenic risks for children, with ingestion as the principal exposure pathway. The PMF-Environment Risk Assessment and PMF-Human Health Risk Assessment models were developed to obtain the ecological and human health risks for every source category. Railway operation was regarded as the major factor influencing ecology and human health at the diesel-driven railway sampling sites. However, at electricity-driven railway sampling sites, natural sources were dominant.

Shape-Guided Mixed Metro Map Layout.

Metro or transit maps, are schematic representations of transit networks to facilitate effective route-finding. These maps are often advertised on a web page or pamphlet highlighting routes from source to destination stations. To visually support such route-finding, designers often distort the layout by embedding symbolic shapes (e.g., circular routes) in order to guide readers' attention (e.g., Moscow map and Japan railway map). However, manually producing such maps is labor-intensive and the effect of shapes remains unclear. In this paper, we propose an approach to generalize such mixed metro maps that take user-defined shapes as an input. In this mixed design, lines that are used to approximate the shapes are arranged symbolically, while the remaining lines follow classical layout convention. A three-step algorithm, including (1) detecting and selecting routes for shape approximation, (2) shape and layout deformation, and (3) aligning lines on a grid, is integrated to guarantee good visual quality. Our contribution lies in the definition of the mixed metro map problem and the formulation of design criteria so that the problem can be resolved systematically using the optimization paradigm. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our approach and perform a user study to test if the embedded shapes are recognizable or reduce the map quality.

Integrating Station-Area Development with Rail Transit Networks: Lessons from Japan Railway in Tokyo

Rail transit is a primary transport mode in Tokyo and has become the backbone of its urban development. Tokyo rail transit networks consist of the subway in the central area, private railways in the suburban area, and Japan Railway (JR) in both central and suburban areas. Prior research revealed that JR has better coordination of transit node functions and station-area development than subway and private railway stations, but how Tokyo's JR station-area development integrates with its network growth is less explored. This work investigates how JR station-area development grows in tandem with network expansion, by revisiting different historical phases. The results show that, in the beginning of the twentieth century, JR connected major urban nodes in both central and suburban Tokyo, and therefore became the skeleton of Tokyo's transit systems. During the post-earthquake and post-war period, central subway and suburban private railways gradually met JR on the Yamanote line, enabling the major interchange stations to develop into urban centers. In the 1960s, JR increased its services to alleviate passenger congestion and undertook grade separation projects to reduce conflicts with road networks. The 1987 JR privatization marked a turning point of massive station-area redevelopment. JR station areas have been transformed from underutilized industrial land into high-density commercial use, and major JR stations were comprehensively replanned for identity and place-making. After a centennial development, JR stations have become important interchange and express-service nodes on Tokyo transit networks with intensive land use and different urban functions. The Tokyo JR case can provide insights for metropolitan cities on how to integrate rail transit infrastructure with station-area development, including matching critical nodes in transit networks with urban functions and high-density land use and connecting these urban functions through express line services.

The potential of Jakarta-Surabaya high-speed rail in developing tourism: Learning from Japan

The Shinkansen is the fastest bullet train in Japan. Shinkansen greatly improve the tourism economy in some cities in Japan. Shinkansen is extremely handy for foreign visitors and reduces the cost of visiting numerous places in Japan. As is known, MRT in Jakarta is one of the collaborative projects between Japan and Indonesia. Indonesia also has a 'semi-fast' train that travels between Jakarta and Surabaya at 140-145 km/hour. Learning from the Shinkansen in Japan, the Indonesian Semi-High-Speed Train also has the potential to increase the tourism sites in Indonesia with the help of a 'push and pull strategy.' This case study used interviews and literature reviews for data collection. In this study, after data was collected, it was used to analyse the mode of transportation for tourism destinations and the marketing strategy that can be used for this research. The result of this study is that Indonesia can also imitate the implementation of tour packages from Japan's railway and tourism system. Shinkansen connects tourist destinations in various cities (intercity), and it is hoped that the semi-fast train built by the Indonesian government can do the same thing. Railways as tourism transport are only one thing in developing tourist destinations. The other thing is, of course, related to integrated tourism planning

A Study on Earthquake Loading to Secure Safety During Railway Bridge Construction

Railway bridges are widely built based on the national railway network and maintenance plans. As in the case of an earthquake in Pohang, the seismic safety of constructions in Korea is very important in the prevention of disasters. Therefore, the cases of damage caused by earthquakes and additional horizontal forces during bridge superstructure constructions were investigated among domestic and foreign earthquakes, and the details of overseas related design standards were confirmed. The horizontal forces based on the domestic seismic design standard (KDS 24 17 10: 2016) on the PSC beam, PSC box, steel box, and wind load were compared with the design codes based on the Eurocode 8 (Part 2), Japan Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE), and East Japan Railway Company (JR East).

Improvement of the Damping Factor at Low Speed in Electrodynamic Suspension System for the JR Maglev

The electrodynamic suspension system (EDS) is one of the magnetic levitation system and has advantage of stable levitation without the gap control. However, the damping factor of the EDS system is not enough. Once the oscillation of the bogie occurs by the external disturbance, it does not converge immediately. The additional damper system is needed, so the damper coil system is installed. By the semi-active damper system, the levitation stability is improved. This paper discusses about superconducting Maglev system as application of the EDS system. Superconducting Maglev has been the magnetic levitation system developed by Central Japan Railway Company and Railway Technical Research Institute. The operation speed of the train is v = 120[m/sec]. At low speed range such as v = 60-80[m/sec], the damping factor is smaller than that of the normal operation v = 120[m/sec], and it is difficult to keep the stable levitation. In this paper, running simulation when the bogie passes large displacement at low speed is undertaken, and the improved switching method for the semi-active damper system at low speed and large displacement is discussed. From the results, to increase the period that the damper coil works. The damping factor becomes larger, and the bogie keeps the levitation.

Asymmetry of Authority or Information Underlying Insufficient Communication Associated with a Risk of Crashes or Incidents in Passenger Railway Transportation

Similar crashes or incidents may recur as a result of insufficient communication in uncertain and risky situations that potentially threaten safety. The common root causes of insufficient communication across a series of incidents and crashes must be explored in detail to prevent a vicious circle of similar incidents or crashes from occurring. This study summarizes a series of incidents and crashes (derailment due to excessive train speed) at JR West at the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) that are considered to have arisen from insufficient communication. The incidents included (i) resuming train service without confirming the number of passengers on board and leaving passengers behind the station at Higashi-Hiroshima station, (ii) continuing train service in spite of an apparent risk of a crash detected at Okayama station, and (iii) leaving the crack of the train hood as it was at Kokura station. We discuss the causes of insufficient communication (particularly in relation to the sharing of information) among the three branches of staff—the station staff, the conductor and train driver, and the train operation management center—that led to the incidents or crashes. Two factors contributed to the insufficient communication in the series of incidents and crashes: (a) Asymmetry of authority, which hinders the discussion of issues openly and equally among the branches concerned. (b) An unacceptable level of knowledge or information for all branches concerned.

The dynamic amplification factors for continuous beam bridges along high-speed railways

In this paper, the dynamic amplification factors (DAFs) of high-speed railway continuous girder bridges are studied. The vehicle-bridge interactions (VBIs) of 13 concrete continuous girder bridges with spans ranging from 48 to 130 m are analyzed, the influences of the train speed, the train marshalling and the bridge fundamental frequency on the DAF are investigated, and the DAF design standard for high-speed railway bridges is discussed. The results indicate that for the continuous beam bridge whose fundamental frequency is less than 3.0 Hz, the maximum DAF is no more than 1.15; while for the bridge examples with a fundamental frequency larger than 3.0 Hz, the maximum DAF reaches 1.25 because the resonance occurs at high train speed. The empirical formulas of the DAFs in the Japan Railway Technical Research Institute (JRTRI) code could provide a conservative estimation of the DAFs of high-speed railway continuous bridges.

A Hybrid Method to Evaluate Soil Liquefaction Potential of Seabed at Offshore Wind Farm in Taiwan

This paper undertakes liquefaction analysis with simplified procedures with standard penetration test (SPT) data and cone penetration test (CPT) data obtained from an offshore wind farm in the Changhua area. The soil liquefaction resistance calculated by the SPT-based simplified procedure suggested by the Japan Railway Association was in agreement with the laboratory results. The CPT is widely used in the site investigation of offshore wind farms. However, Taiwan’s registered professional engineers are still familiar with soil liquefaction analysis for offshore wind farms using SPT-based methods. Hence, a hybrid method that incorporates an SPT–CPT correlation into the New Japan Road Association (NJRA) method is proposed to evaluate the soil liquefaction potential for offshore wind farms in Taiwan. In the case studies of soil liquefaction with five groups of adjacent boreholes in Changhua’s offshore wind farms, the hybrid method shows that the soil liquefaction potential with CPT data is consistent with the results calculated with SPT-based simplified procedures. To quantify the risk of soil liquefaction, Monte Carlo simulation is used to calculate the uncertainty of CPT–qc for estimating the probability of soil liquefaction with the hybrid method.

“Fostering a Safety Culture”- East Japan Railway Company

“Fostering a Safety Culture”- East Japan Railway Company

Self-Organized Model Fitting Method for Railway Structures Monitoring Using LiDAR Point Cloud

Mobile laser scanning (MLS) has been successfully used for infrastructure monitoring apt to its fine accuracy and higher point density, which is favorable for object reconstruction. The massive data size, computational time, wider spatial distribution and feature extraction become a challenging task for 3D point data processing with MLS point cloud receives from terrestrial structures such as buildings, roads and railway tracks. In this paper, we propose a new approach to detect the structures in-line with railway track geometry such as railway crossings, turnouts and quantitatively estimate their dimensions and spatial location by iteratively applying a vertical slice to point cloud data for long distance laser measurement. The rectangular vertical slices were defined and their boundary coordinates were estimated based on a geometrical method. Estimated vertical slice boundaries were iteratively used to evaluate the point density of each vertical slice along with a cross-track direction of the railway line. Those point densities were further analyzed to detect the railway line track objects by their shape and spatial location along with the rail bed. Herein, the survey dataset is used as a dictionary to preidentify the spatial location of the object and then as an accurate estimation for the rail-track, by estimating the gauge corner (GC) from dense point cloud. The proposed method has shown a significant improvement in the rail-track extraction process, which becomes a challenge for existing remote sensing technologies. This adaptive object detection method can be used to identify the railway track structures prior to the railway track extraction, which allows in finding the GC position precisely. Further, it is based on the parallelism of the railway track, which is distinct from conventional railway track extraction methods. Therefore it does not require any inertial measurements along with the MLS survey and can be applied with less background information of the observed MLS point cloud. The proposed algorithm was tested for the MLS data set acquired during the pilot project collaborated with West Japan Railway Company. The results indicate 100% accuracy for railway structure detection and enhance the GC extraction for railway structure monitoring.

Coordination between node, place, and ridership: Comparing three transit operators in Tokyo

Balancing network accessibility (node value) and station-area land use (place value) has been an important research topic for transit-oriented development, but little was known about how node and place value should coordinate with ridership. Using Tokyo as a case study, we develop a node-place-ridership model to evaluate coordination between these three facets and compare different transit operators, namely subway in central area, private railway in suburban area, and Japan Railway (JR) in both central and suburban area. An indicator framework is established to measure the node value by accessible opportunities, network centrality, and train service, and measure the place value by density, design, and diversity. Using open-source urban data, we generate a series of node and place indicators for each station and develop a composite node value index and place value index with information entropy weighting. The results show that node value and place value have positive impacts on ridership and node value’s impact is five times higher than place value. Stations balanced between node and place value can be uncoordinated with ridership, while stations unbalanced between node and place value can coordinate with ridership. JR has better node-place balance and ridership coordination than subway and private railway. Several implications are drawn for ridership coordination with node and place value, including planning for a more mixed urban structure and using through trains to connect central and suburban transit networks. The results of this study would inform transport planners of better organizing transit network, land use, and ridership in urban space.

Assessment of the improvement in energy intensity by the new high-speed railway in Japan

Energy intensity improvement is an influential policy agenda for global environmental problem-solving and sustainability enhancement. This study focuses on inter-regional networks’ impact on energy intensity and statistically examines whether the improvement of such networks promotes a modal shift from passenger vehicles to railways. The results indicate the nonlinear relationship between the improvement of inter-regional networks and the variation of the passenger vehicle sector’s energy consumption. Furthermore, the results reveal that the laying of high-speed railways, which helps strengthen inter-regional networks, can significantly improve regional energy intensity. This result has valuable implications for Japan’s national land plan. The high-quality transportation infrastructure, such as high-speed railways, to be introduced in the country can potentially change the energy consumption patterns in inter-regional travel and improve energy intensity. Our results suggest that the installation of the high-speed railway will effectively reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This revelation is expected to provide new policy evidence to scholars and policymakers.

Displacement measurement of concrete bridges by the sampling Moiré method based on phase analysis of repeated pattern

AbstractMeasuring accurate deformation distribution of large‐scale structures inexpensively and efficiently is a crucial challenge of structural health monitoring. Phase‐based imaging technique has great potential for accurate and robust multipoint displacement measurement in the field. In this study, the sampling Moiré method—one of the promising optical techniques—was applied to the displacement measurement of a concrete bridge for the high‐speed railway in Japan. Using retroreflective Moiré markers, the two‐dimensional in‐plane displacements at multiple locations could be easily measured from recorded digital images at a distance of 20 m regardless of day and night. Results of the dynamic deflection obtained from the sampling Moiré method were in good agreement with those from a conventional laser Doppler vibrometer. The time series of two‐dimensional displacement analyses when the outbound or inbound trains passed at the speed of 150 or 320 km/h through the bridge revealed that the points at the centre and the quarter of the bridge span demonstrated complex deformation behaviour showing elliptical rotation. The effects of random noise of the recorded image were quantitatively investigated, and the air fluctuation was discussed from the field experiments. We proved that measurements using the sampling Moiré method could be more stable at night than daytime.

The Samurai Bond: Credit Supply, Market Access, and Structural Transformation in Pre-War Japan

While credit supply growth is associated with exacerbating financial crises, its impact on long-run growth is unclear. Market access similarly has ambiguous economic effects over time. Using regional variation in bond payments to samurai and the introduction of railways in nineteenth century Japan, we find that together they are associated with persistent redistributive effects between regions and sectors. Areas with higher bond value and railway access experienced tertiary sector growth and primary sector shrinkage, with analogous results in sectoral labor shares. This interaction between credit supply and market access facilitated structural transformation but had little long-run net growth impact.

<b>Recent Trends in Design Technology of Cut and Cover Tunnels for Railways</b>

Cut and cover tunnels for railways in Japan are designed according to the Design Standards for Railway Structures and Commentary (Cut and Cover Tunnels). The standard was published about 15 years ago. Subsequently, the design of railway structures, except tunnels, shifted to a performance-based design system. Therefore, a committee was established to revise the Design Standards for Railway Structures and Commentary (Cut and Cover Tunnels) in 2014. The committee completed a draft new set of standards in 2017. This paper discusses recent trends in the design technology of cut and cover tunnels for railways, with a focus on the contents of the committee's revised draft.