THE AMAZING OF JAPANESE RAILWAY

Indri
API Fellowship 2004

Abstract

Train is one of the main alternative public transportations because it will make people easy to travel from one place to another place. They tend to choose this transportation for it is safer, more relax, faster, and the price of the ticket is still affordable.

The rate of train accidents in Indonesian Railway is fairly high. In 1996 106 accidents happened, 196 cases in 1999, while in January – August 2001 there were 7 dreadful accidents, which took 109 people injured and 65 died. Indonesian train only connected between the cities in the Java Island.

For contrary in Japan, there were many line of train and already connected between Hokkaido Island, Honshu Island, Kyushu Island, and Shikoku Island. There were only 3 cases of accident since 1990. On 14 May 1991, there were collision on Shigaraki Kogen Railway 42 people died and more than 600 people were injured.

Another case on 8 March 2000, there were derailment and collision at Naka Meguro on Hibiya Subway Line, Tokyo.That accident caused 5 passengers died and 63 others injured. The last accident was happenned on Joetsu Shinkansen Line when 8 of its cars went off the tracks because of earthquakes. It was the first bullet train to derail in the Shinkansen’s 40 years history since its operations. There were no one injured.

Japan National Railway had restructuring on 1987. Japan National Railway had privatisation and divided into 6 Japan Railways (JRs). There are JR East, JR Central, JR West, JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku, and JR Kyushu. Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) establish in December 1986 and integrated between the existing RTRI with the Railway Labor Science Institute of Japan National Railway upon its privatisation and division in April 1987 to promote widely ranged research and development activities in railway technologies, from basic research to application.

85% accidents in Indonesian Railway were caused by human error. Human error can occur when the train driver is doing his job. One of the causes is the ergonomic factor. This factors to be main topics in Railway Labor Science Institute on 1970 – 1980. It’s means Indonesian Railway was late 25 years from Japanese Railway.

Human Science Division in RTRI divided into 3 laboratories; Ergonomics laboratory, Psychology and Physiology Laboratory, and Safety Analysis Laboratory.

Now, the main topic in Ergonomic laboratory is how to develop the facilities for disability person and elderly people, in the Psychology and Physiology Laboratory are endurance of work for driver related safety for analysize tolerance of fatigue and how to issued driver licence test related with special attitude test, IQ test, and psychological test.
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