In a recent blog post entitled ‘Wheelchairs were denied boarding at JR’, the disability activist and writer, Natsuko Izena describes not being allowed to board a JR station, something that she describes as “a common occurrence for wheelchair users in this day and age.”
The voluntary organization “Minami Shinshu Outing Team” With “” created by the Achi Hirugami Tourist Bureau in Chisato Achi Village and “Kafune Nursing” in the north of Iida City rents and assists wheelchairs equipped with the towing assistance device “JINRIKI”.
The City of Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, has produced a CD teaching material to help the visually impaired learn about the platform fences installed at JR Akashi Station and other stations. The CD explains the procedure of walking through the station with a visually impaired person and getting on a train. It also includes an interview with a JR West employee and his impressions of the platform fence.
A study session was held at JR Kanazawa Station on the 16th to verify issues so that visually impaired people can use ticket vending machines smoothly. Yoshifumi Yoneshima (68), the chairman of the Ishikawa Association for the Visually Impaired, and helpers experienced purchasing a ticket using a new ticket vending machine installed on the premises in December last year.
The so-called “digital disability certificate”, which is equipped with information on the disability certificate on smartphones, became available for use on JR and private railways nationwide from the 13th.
JR Tokai will increase the number of spaces for wheelchairs on its Shinkansen or ‘bullet trains’ from two to six spaces.
In an accident where a visually impaired man fell from a platform and died at a station on the Tobu Tojo Line in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, Tobu Railway thoroughly spoke to visually impaired people and turned the edge of the platform red for the time being. The railway have decided to take measures such as calling attention to people with impaired vision.
Tokyo Metro announced on the 18th that it has developed a system that guides the visually impaired people safely in a station by reading a QR code on the Braille block with the camera of the smartphone and guiding the direction and distance by voice. It will be introduced at 5 stations in Tokyo from the 27th.
The Osaka prefectural police department plans to introduce a program allowing elderly drivers to experience what life without a car would be like before they actually surrender their licenses. The program will encourage elderly drivers to take public transportation or ride bicycles instead of driving a car. They will be allowed to drive while participating in the program.
A survey conducted by the Japanese newspaper The Mainichi Shimbun that more than 80% of Japan’s accessible pedestrian signals, traffic lights that also produce sounds to let pedestrians with visual impairments know when it’s safe to cross the road, have their noise-making function muted for at least part of the day, the newspaper’s survey of the country’s 47 prefectural police forces has found.
Barrier Free Japan