14 ms·

The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

245 points by cheeaun 8y ago

lainga 8y ago
>Rail stations, whether in Japan or elsewhere, are also great places to see “nudge theory” at work. Gentle nudges, like ultrasonic deterrents to keep teenagers away with "a look of confusion or discomfort, and often a cry of urusai! (Loud!)"...?
- Evansbee 8y ago
  That's in a separate section of the article. "Point and Call" isn't nudge theory either.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  I remember riding on a train in Japan when some schoolgirls sitting across from me were just chatting in an excited way...nothing that seemed out of place, but man did they get it. Things seemed fine to me, especially on a hot summer day in an uncrowded train with the windows down (plenty of atmospheric noise). All of a sudden a conductor (not sure if you call him that, he was in the back end of the car) popped out of his enclosure and yelled at them like they had just trashed his living space. He did use the word "urusai," but more than that (as is often the case in Japanese) his tone was just _dark_, fast, and loud. All I could think was that he put on that intervention for us few foreigners who were being pretty quiet, and who really weren't bothered, but I still have no idea.
  - lhorie 8y ago
    > All I could think was that he put on that intervention for us few foreigners Nah. In Japanese culture, it's simply considered rude to be loud in trains.
    - timr 8y ago
      Still. I've never seen a conductor yell at anyone for being loud, especially in the cities. Maybe it happens in the inaka...
      - sho 8y ago
        Never seen a conductor do it, but I've seen other passengers lay into someone for being too rowdy or (especially) talking on the phone. Usually following a comically obvious build-up of red-faced anger over 5-10 minutes or so. Anecdotally I've heard that social censure is far more common and ruthless in the women's-only cars.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    That just sounds like an Asian in parental mode to me. Sounds just like my mom or dad when they've had enough. (Seriously, there was always a part of me thinking, "Why does Mom/Dad sound like they're in a Samurai drama?" I'm not even Japanese!)
  - hkmurakami 8y ago
    Was this outside of a major metro area? The tone and conjugation of the word is surprising.
  - guardiangod 8y ago
    It's possible they were talking about you in a less than flattering way thinking you don't understand Japanese, and the conductor had enough of it.
- t413 8y ago
  Those 'ultrasonic deterrents' should be completely illegal to deploy on/near any publicly accessible property. Having run into them many times over the years here in the US they're horrifically loud, painful, and less of a deterrent and more a punishment for having less-degraded hearing.
  - fiblye 8y ago
    Agreed. I'm well beyond being a teenager, but I still hear these things. Some stores put them near their entrances and it's never a pleasant surprise.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Indeed. I'm 34 and can still hear them.
  - ehnto 8y ago
    I used to go to the same food court nearly everyday for lunch during work. They had birds wander in, little sparrows, that would peck at the crumbs. Not that many of them if any at all. They deployed a constant sweeping high pitched noise emitter to combat the birds and it's impossible to be in the area now. I just can't imagine how they're legal or even sensible. I wonder if perhaps it wasn't a ploy to get the court to slow down and get the tenants to leave so they can redevelop it. It's been a local institution for some time.
  - sjmulder 8y ago
    Completely agreed. There's this road I sometimes have in my running route where one of the residents there put one of these things in their front yard. It hurts my ears and, I'm afraid, my longer term hearing if it happens often enough. It's really loud. Who'd think it okay to inflict this sort of thing on people of _any_ age? It's also a blatant attempt at age discrimination.
- rayiner 8y ago
  This is great we need those everywhere.
  - mcherm 8y ago
    I hear someone invented a special light which is uncomfortably hot when it interacts with darker skin, but doesn't (usually) affect those who are fair-skinned.[1] Statistics show that locations that deploy these lights have fewer minor crimes.[2] Do you think we should deploy these lights along with the squealers? If not, then why not -- what is different? [1] Not actually true (thank goodness). Fictional example was created for illustrative purposes only. [2] Not actually true (because the lights aren't real). But if they were real, this would almost certainly be true. Among other things, if you drive off a percentage of the population, then it decreases the number of people, and thus the number of crimes.
- Tharkun 8y ago
  These were sadly pretty common in the UK for a while, at the height of the ASBO-plague. I believe they're called 'mosquitos'.
booleandilemma 8y ago
Reminds me of how NYC subway trains now have arrows on the floor of the train cars directing people to step further in instead of just standing at the door and blocking everyone behind them (which seems to be an all too common behavior).
- ionforce 8y ago
  I've not convinced at how effective that is.
  - booleandilemma 8y ago
    You and I both :)
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Anecdote time... Tokyo train stations kinda suck. Coming from a few weeks in Malaysia and Singapore, it was interesting to see just how little and how poorly translated English is there. (They speak Japanese and not English, but lets be honest about it being the lingua franca) It was VERY DIFFICULT to figure out how their train colors worked, how Orange gets to Blue (it's a connect, but a couple blocks away). That Ginza station (iirc, might be wrong) has at least two names. Also, that none of the machines take cards! We were 11 yen short - about $0.10 for a ticket to the airport, and while the very nice workers were happy to explain where a few blocks away the ATM was, it would have been great if someone just threw a coin at us to get us to go away, different culture, I suppose had I asked someone would have given it to us, but I feel like in the USA it would have just been offered. Japan was a lot like NYC, the subway there is also more confusing than places like DC or Taipei.
- bamboozled 8y ago
  I found it very easy and each time I’ve asked for assistance I’ve received it. The stations are always manned with several staff so help is always available. On the Tokyo subway all trains and maps, signage and in cabin screens provide English labelling. What more do you need ? Edit: I have to add, the fact the trains a almost perfectly ontime, with little wait between services, always designed to meet capacity, are In great condition and spotless, I really don’t see how it “sucks”. In fact what more do you want out of a Subway?
  - dahdum 8y ago
    There's a small learning curve but they do a great job on signage and maps. I kinda feel bad asking for assistance in Japan. Most of the times I needed help they went way beyond my expectations to assist.
- ng12 8y ago
  > They speak Japanese and not English, but lets be honest about it being the lingua franca If you go to Seoul they don't even have Romanized names for the train stations. Everything's in Hangul. For a massive system built primarily for Japanese speakers it's really pretty accessible. > Japan was a lot like NYC, the subway there is also more confusing than places like DC or Taipei. I mean, DC and Taipei are much smaller systems than NYC and (especially) Tokyo. There's also geographical concerns -- Tokyo is just huge and NYC is very oddly shaped. DC, Taipei, Boston, Chicago, etc are very radial which makes them easy to figure out.
tbabb 8y ago
> Operating on the theory that exposure to blue light has a calming effect on one’s mood, rail stations installed these LED panels as a suicide-prevention measure Color me completely skeptical. That sounds like superstition to me. It reports that rates declined after installation, but if they preferentially installed the lights in areas with high rates of suicide, then we should expect to see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean .
- pwaivers 8y ago
  It said that the lights led to a 84 percent decline in suicides attempts. That may not be true, but it is definitely way higher than "regression towards the mean" would cause.
  - tbabb 8y ago
    One could not say what is "expected" without knowing either the statistics of suicides in Japanese train stations, or the statistics of where installations happened. If per-station variance is high, or if the installed stations were significant outliers (or both), 84% would be perfectly within expectation. I find it very hard to believe that the color of the light in the train station would sway a person's life-and-death decision. Plenty of things could, but "it's blue here" does not seem like one of them. "Colors have 'magical' effects on emotion" is a very woo-y thing to believe.
    - jpatokal 8y ago
      While I share your skepticism, there's is pretty solid evidence that strong white/blue light is effective in treating seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Ma...
      - mcherm 8y ago
        That fact along with any reason to believe that 84% of suicides are caused by SAD might help explain things. But that "fact" isn't remotely true.
pwaivers 8y ago
I was really hoping for more examples of crowd management and station design. This article only has a few examples, and none of them really explained why Japanese trains are so efficient.
- fein 8y ago
  The likely answer is that the Japanese are an efficient people in general. It's not surprising that a group of people following the same social norms would have an efficient system for public transport.
  - contingencies 8y ago
    Americans would first build a three level carpark and gas station, then a strip mall with a drug store, take-away coffee and donuts. Then they would privatize the publicly funded station, at which time the service quality would tank and the entire facility would fall in to a state of minimum repair. Or something like that.
    - fein 8y ago
      Are we using reality here or whatever lives in your head? American public transit is public (government owned and run) and it still sucks. Additionally Japan, just like any other country, is going to build concessions and parking into/ around anything that draws enough people to merit an investment.
      - contingencies 8y ago
        Reality, depending on what you believe. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2017/oct/prescription-drug-costs-us-outlier http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/20... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doughnut_shops#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doughnut_shops#United_... https://www.nap.edu/read/10141/chapter/4#42 https://www.nap.edu/read/10141/chapter/4#42
JoeDaDude 8y ago
More on the shisa kanko Point-and-Call system here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-japan-trains https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-j... I've heard of people doing similar things with small children for safety reasons, things such as point both ways before crossing, and the old "fingers on noses before the door closes" for car doors.
- jdtang13 8y ago
  This is such an awesome system. It completely makes sense that your mindfulness will increase when you integrate your full body with a task, using your eyesight, gestures, and voice. It's quite similar to jotting down notes using pen-and-pencil and enunciating the object of study in order to remember it well. It is even similar to prayer and meditation, where incense and singing increases your own awareness.
  - hkmurakami 8y ago
    It's also used in the factories in Japan to reduce errors (I worked in one as part of my training there)
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  That was the most interesting takeaway. I was really wondering if train and tram conductors are practicing a low level version of kung-fu or so. Now I know why they do that. Very interesting & thanks for the link.
- mlrtime 8y ago
  The NYC subway operators do this as well. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mta-conductors-point-stopping-subway-station-article-1.3502286 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mta-conductors-point-sto...
__david__ 8y ago
I was very surprised to recognize one of the train-leaving jingles: https://youtu.be/470_2wt2t1o?t=41 https://youtu.be/470_2wt2t1o?t=41 Took me a second but I realized it was the same music that the old Mr. Do arcade machine (from 1982) plays when you get an extra man: https://youtu.be/5_BBQWed8Vk?t=434 https://youtu.be/5_BBQWed8Vk?t=434 So is this jingle an homage to the game, or did the game lift the melody from somewhere else?
- rangibaby 8y ago
  It’s the theme song from Astro Boy https://youtu.be/KGq6z1mEU9Q https://youtu.be/KGq6z1mEU9Q
  - paulific 8y ago
    And they play it at Takadanobaba station which located in the area where Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, had his studio. (There is also a huge mural under the railway bridge outside featuring all of his characters)
- bschwindHN 8y ago
  Funny to hear that here, that's my local train station :)
contingencies 8y ago
I've been through mass transit systems in at least fifteen countries by this point. Japan (Osaka) didn't leave a huge impression, as plenty of countries in Asia have similar systems. Yesterday I caught the first inter-city mass transit in China from Guangzhou to Foshan, part of the aggressive infrastructural beginnings of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) megacity. The two cities' systems were evidently conceived and funded independently, with an interconnecting station design that terminates both systems in a big mess. Hauling a kid and luggage we first had to climb two huge flights of stairs (no lift), go through a stupid ineffective security screening, interface with a horrific UI to buy tickets, walk a substantial distance, descend, negotiate more stairs, walk a substantial distance again, and finally stand on a squashed platform. I did note they had anti-suicide barriers, but the lack of space made them more like anti-accident barriers. (Shanghai by contrast has full height doors on the platforms.) The actual metro ride was very pleasant and fast however and despite a crowded train (it was evening rush hour) and some ill passengers nearby we managed to emerge unscathed. Total cost from Guangzhou to Foshan: 6元 (about USD$1). IIRC I think John Young of cryptome published or shared something years ago on "the architecture of control" specifically discussing the physical environment of train stations. I remember it changed my perceptions of train stations even in the comparatively vacuous venue of Sydney's system. I just had a search but unfortunately couldn't find it.
- pasbesoin 8y ago
  Your comment made me look. I haven't read all of the following. http://observer.com/2010/12/the-original-wikileaker/ http://observer.com/2010/12/the-original-wikileaker/ This may not be specifically what you had in mind, but perhaps it pertains: https://archinect.com/features/article/149956364/the-whistleblower-architects-surveillance-infrastructure-and-freedom-of-information-according-to-cryptome-part-2 https://archinect.com/features/article/149956364/the-whistle... The Whistleblower Architects: surveillance, infrastructure, and freedom of information according to Cryptome (part 2) Nicholas Korody By Nicholas Korody Jul 7, '16 12:15 PM EST 0 Credit: Cryptome Credit: Cryptome This is the second half of a two-part interview with Cryptome, an online repository of leaked government secrets and other documents relevant to contemporary surveillance and its infrastructure. Cryptome is run by the architects Deborah Natsios and John Young, who live and work in New York City (any use of the first person is from Natsios' perspective). Part one, which you can read here, delves into their backgrounds and motivations. Part two deals more with their views on the contemporary city and the politics of information access. I was hoping you could draw something like a sketch of the city as you see it today, perhaps using New York, where you both live and work, as an example. How does surveillance operate in the city? How does information become a mechanism of control? I'm thinking a bit about your recent postings on Twitter of surreptitious surveillance cameras. Our place of work overlooks a long stretch of historic Broadway, the city's oldest north-south thoroughfare and a former native trail. Broadway charts a diagonal exception to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which famously overlaid a rectangular grid as a rationalizing technique to discipline wild Manhattan's island topography.Vibrant democracy has to make public space available for the unexpected, the creative, the dissenting without fear of reprisal Broadway's everyday percussion of taxis, fire engines, ambulance sirens, garbage trucks, barking dogs and toddler tantrums that reach our windows confirms that, in spite of the grid, eruptions of near-chaos have always been part of the creative hardscape. It's only when we join the anarchic materiality of street-level democracy as autonomous, anonymous or social pedestrians that we feel truly embodied in the living city. Vibrant democracy has to make public space available for the unexpected, the creative, the dissenting without fear of reprisal. Not visible from our upper aerie is the concealed architectonic of municipal grids superimposed in recent decades onto legacy disciplines of 1811. We cannot see vast information infrastructures that encode processes of worldwide economic restructuring whose capital, symbols, goods and bodies flow through the local interests of our relentlessly global city. Harnessing informational flows falls under the trending rubric of municipal 'smart' policies. Metropolitan governance has widely embraced market-driven best practices derived from global risk management approaches, as David Lyon notes. Their privatizing regimes are anticipating and controlling urban outcomes through risk calculations that mine big data from myriad sources. Most provocative are analytics gleaned from ubiquitous watching and tracking of bodies that make up the city's far-flung, mobile and diasporic populations. We are increasingly visible to invisible regimes. Cryptome's library for information equality works in small, daily increments to invert this diagram.We are increasingly visible to invisible regimes. As part of modest efforts to do our part to help shore up the diminishing public domain, Cryptome has been documenting in recent weeks the block-by-block smart upgrading of New York City's obsolete public telephony system. Trenches are being chopped along the street, rope pulled through underground innerduct, rebar placed to receive poured concrete, galvanized steel pedestals positioned with orange power cable and fiber poking out of conduit. Credit: Cryptome Credit: Cryptome Installed onto the legacy footprint of the city's former sidewalk payphone system, 7,500 to 10,000 'Structures' of the dispersed LinkNYC system will broadcast 'relevant' ads on 55” HD screens to subsidize the kiosks' free gigabit-speed Internet service, free public wi-fi, free domestic phone calls, free USB phone-charging outlets and a 911 emergency call button. Assemblages like these undergird smart cities that are consolidating around us, with boosterish zeal, for the supposed benefit of municipal efficiency, convenience and social equity. Big data collection technologies that enable the Internet of Things (IoT) are embedding into larger scale urban infrastructures towards that end. But can smart space be democratic public space when speech and acts are ubiquitously recorded and reported? Are apps 'free' when they harvest vast troves of personal data without consent? can smart space be democratic public space when speech and acts are ubiquitously recorded and reported?Wi-fi hotspots are notoriously insecure. Smartphones exude communications trails and geolocational clues. LinkNYC's multiple onboard sensors include microphones and concealed pinhole cameras that capture ambient data for 24/7 delivery to downstream analytics. Surveillant practices capture and process our digital traces as abstracted New Yorkers, fragmenting personal data into simulated identities stored in various databases or resold to data brokers. Jury pool lists, marriage licenses, voting records, civil disobedience misdemeanors, rifle permits and police dossiers––analog bureaucratic records that constituted an earlier idea of civic modernity––are now logged electronically. They coordinate with other databases, both commercial and municipal, through powerful data-mining analytics that reinforce the social partitions and economic divisions of the inequitably stratified city, as Lyon warns. During the 1960s, Jane Jacobs advocated 'eyes on the street' as a citizen-directed management of public space that invited watchful caring of neighbors and strangers. New Yorkers could make 911 calls seeking emergency assistance from the analog payphone system first installed in the 1920s. Credit: Cryptome Credit: Cryptome After 9/11, the NYPD deputized New Yorkers as para-policing informants, urging them to act on fear and suspicion: 'if you see something say something'. The vintage payphone system had fallen into disuse. Post-9/11 visualization and reporting regimes revealed risk management-style policing coordinating with command-and-control technologies developed for military battlespace and cyberwar. Preemptive war-gaming targeted Muslim neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Pakistani communities along Coney Island Avenue, public housing in the South Bronx and Bangladeshi enclaves in Kensington. A company that produces military mission control systems manufactures LinkNYC kiosks through a spin off entity. Installed along public sidewalks at a granular coverage of every 200 feet or so, the devices introduce an unprecedented urban apparatus: the coordinated automation and privatization of neighborhood-scale sensing and reporting derived from military command-and-control technology. Has LinkNYC been tracking Cryptome's movements through the city?LinkNYC joins stop-and-frisk policing and Lower Manhattan's Ring of Steel security cordon as one of the city's premier sensing and reporting technologies....
11thEarlOfMar 8y ago
In my first experience with trains in Japan, I had to take a jaunt that included a leg from Nagoya to Matsusaka. The train ride was about 90 minutes, and I was anxious about knowing which station to exit. I anticipated that the signage would all be in Japanese. So I asked the station attendant in Nagoya how I'd know when to get off. He looked at my ticket and said, "The train will stop at 1:11PM. You get off." The train stopped at promptly 1:11 PM, and I got off in Matsusaka.
- oceanman888 8y ago
  Been living in japan since 2011, you can search when train stops at where exactly now, including emergency info. And all station attendant have a booklet with all those stuff written, so all he had to do is to take a look at it. When it comes to government related system in japan they surprisingly works very well with outdated tech
- dorfsmay 8y ago
  I don't understand, isn't that how trains work everywhere? Otherwise how are the people in the next city supposed to know when they need to be there to board that train?
  - rayiner 8y ago
    I mean there is a time posted, and it won’t leave earlier than that, but it may leave a lot later. Here is the delay distribution for the train I would take to work if it wasn’t so late: https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/history.php?train_num=111&station=Ncr&date_start=04%2F24%2F2018&date_end=05%2F24%2F2018&df1=1&df2=1&df3=1&df4=1&df5=1&df6=1&df7=1&sort=d_dp&sort_dir=DESC&co=gt&limit_mins=&dfon=1 https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/history.php?t...
    - stevekemp 8y ago
      > it won’t leave earlier than that, Except by accident: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44149791 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44149791
quantisan 8y ago
I witnessed a group of 20+ Latin American tourists boarding at some station and then getting off at Shinjuku the other day. One of them held the train door with his body while all 20+ of them strolled in the train nonchalantly. Then the same door blocker proceeded to scream out instructions to the rest of the group. They did the same thing on the way out. Usually there's a smooth flow of people entering and exiting as everyone seem to know where to go (left or right) because there are maps of train car # to every other station's exits on the line. While they were figuring out whether to go left or right on the platform, they were blocking everyone on that side of the platform right at Shinjuku (literally the busiest station on Earth). There are dozens of lines criss-crossing the city and every one of them is running accurate to the minute. We take it for granted living here. But boy, when articles like this come around every so often, mind blown. I never gave the crowd behavioural aspect of this system much thought. But this article reminded me of that incident with the tourists. It's impressive how behavioural quirks of the commuters are critical to the overall efficiency of the system. (obvious in hindsight) Thanks for sharing!
- marak830 8y ago
  There is so much here that couldn't work as it does, without the implicit assumption that everyone is going to behave politely. Hell the polite queuing after a major earthquake for water and food is absolutely astounding. The foreigners who don't try to live up to the social standards while living here should be shunned by the local gaijins.
  - thedailymail 8y ago
    Re the polite queuing after earthquakes: I happened to be in Sendai the day of the big earthquake/tsunami/nuclear reactor breakdown. I had no place to stay because I had a flight booked for later that day, which obviously got canceled. I started walking around downtown. There was clearly a lot of nervous energy, and there were hundreds of aftershocks in the first 24 hours, but people were behaving calmly and orderly. I wandered into a hotel to see if I could book a room. They were fully booked, but were letting people who were stuck without a place to stay to sleep in a ballroom. They provided free sheets, pillows and food to about 100 people, many of them stranded foreigners. Some local volunteers brought in gas powered generators so people could charge their phones. The next morning, I went out for a walk, as it was still not possible to get out of town. At 8:00 in the morning, the supermarket in front of the central train station had staff, in uniform, handing out perishable food for free, rather than having to throw it away (there was no electricity so freezers were down.) The word was only starting to trickle in about how serious the damage was farther north. People were universally calm, generous and polite. I walked around for a few hours, not knowing the town. Many sites of severe structural damage, but some businesses were already open. I passed by a noodle shop run by a young guy. He called out to me and said "You look hungry." (I speak Japanese). He offered me a free bowl of noodles. I finally ended up getting out of town two days later by finding a cab and riding all the way to Fukushima Airport, for the last flight to Tokyo, and then back home to Kobe. The order, decency, and humanity I experienced those few days still make me tear up when I think about it (even right now).
jessiebeck3 8y ago
I visited Tokyo / Japan after two years living in Madagascar (talk about culture shock) and was so amazed at how orderly a crowd that could have otherwise been chaotic moved throughout these cramped spaces. At first I thought it was just cultural -- but not after reading this. Then again, intentional efforts to shift societal behavior, maybe that is a cultural product? Regardless, I would love to see what some of these "nudge" gestures look like in the U.S. How can we better design not just spaces but how humans interact with them?
sho 8y ago
> rail stations in Japan began installing these LED panels as a suicide-prevention measure Another technique they use is to play recorded birdsong and other "sounds of nature" at some open-air stations, which supposedly makes people feel more peaceful and relaxed. It's quite subtle, random and realistic-sounding and caused me quite a lot of confusion looking for the invisible birds before learning the truth!
- latch 8y ago
  The point of the bird sounds is to help visually impaired people find the exit (notice it's always coming from where the escalator starts).
  - sho 8y ago
    Hm. Are you sure? I don't mean the repetitive "chirp" sound which is typical for guiding the visually impaired, most obviously at traffic signals. I mean actual birdsong recordings, played quite subtly at random intervals (ie, sometimes minutes apart). It would seem quite an impractical way to guide anyone. Anyway, my information is from a friend whose uncle works at Tokyo Metro, and has seen his fair share of jinshin jiko maguro. She was quite clear about the notion that it was an anti-suicide measure, and I believed her. I did only notice it on the Saikyou line.
lovemenot 8y ago
An announcement I heard recently at a major station was made in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. The station staff suggested that local passengers should feel free to offer assistance to any tourists who appear to need help. I felt crowd-sourcing passenger support is a good approach. The number of tourists in Tokyo is increasing considerably, but people in Japan often need prior affirmation that their behaviour would be socially acceptable.
kumarvvr 8y ago
Recently went to Japan. For a 'order' freak like me, it was heaven on earth. Not only in train stations, each and every aspect of their lives revolves around understanding human behavior and coming up with solutions to make activities as less confusing as possible. Their commitment to discipline is astounding. If everyone on earth were like the Japanese, our pace of technological, social and other forms of development would be 10x of what they are now.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  What I actually liked most is the following: Eating fermented fish out of a bento box, while gliding through Japan with 300km/h is completely acceptable, yacking away on your cell phone is not. It makes for a very pleasent (and delicious) atmosphere while using public transport.
  - aikinai 8y ago
    I know you’re talking about bullet (or other express) trains where it’s expected to eat, but you’re definitely not supposed to do it on normal trains.
  - lainga 8y ago
    Actually, you can talk on your phone in the bullet trains only, but you have to go to the compartments between carriages.
- xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago
  And millions of people suiciding extra in the world annually. I could argue that they are emotionally-socially less developed and they use cognition to evade dealing/accepting the feels. They also are behind on establishing relationships with other governments/cultures relative to their economical and technological status. Their population growth is also very low and close to declining, not enough people wanting kids. If you think your world is beautifull, then why suicide, why not want to share it with kids. Objectively one might argue it puts a hard stop to nature itself, as it's the base for human life to even exist. That doesn't seem natural (no pun) While we might not like open display of emotions and such, the underlying function is releasing (negative)emotions/energy. It's the people who keep it all in that tend to end up in a less than desirable place. In the west a lot of suicidal/depressed people have been helped succesfully through dealing openly with emotions. "Self imposed" cognitive restrictions and trying to hide emotions are often at the base of unhappiness or the aforementioned scenarios. Ending on a soft tone, the Japanese that do live happy are likely to enjoy it the longest of us all.
j7ake 8y ago
One missing ingredient is that the people have been trained to be orderly and respect and maintain the social order. Removing the blue lights, noise, arrows would do little to disrupt the order of this highly disciplined people, see how civility and order is maintained even after a major earthquake
nickpsecurity 8y ago
Japanese trains are also a great example of high-assurance system development in action. If you have IEEE or ACM, you can read a personal account of each of the stages they went through for the control systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1173109/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1173109/ There's also some other papers that go into detail on specific techs or rollouts: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3925287_Adaptive_step-by-step_construction_technique_achieving_high_assurance_for_Tokyo_Metropolitan_railway_network https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3925287_Adaptive_st... https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5207329/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5207329/ https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1262517 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1262517

245 points by cheeaun 8y ago

>Rail stations, whether in Japan or elsewhere, are also great places to see “nudge theory” at work. Gentle nudges, like ultrasonic deterrents to keep teenagers away with "a look of confusion or discomfort, and often a cry of urusai! (Loud!)"...?

Evansbee 8y ago
That's in a separate section of the article. "Point and Call" isn't nudge theory either.
themodelplumber 8y ago
I remember riding on a train in Japan when some schoolgirls sitting across from me were just chatting in an excited way...nothing that seemed out of place, but man did they get it. Things seemed fine to me, especially on a hot summer day in an uncrowded train with the windows down (plenty of atmospheric noise). All of a sudden a conductor (not sure if you call him that, he was in the back end of the car) popped out of his enclosure and yelled at them like they had just trashed his living space. He did use the word "urusai," but more than that (as is often the case in Japanese) his tone was just _dark_, fast, and loud. All I could think was that he put on that intervention for us few foreigners who were being pretty quiet, and who really weren't bothered, but I still have no idea.
- lhorie 8y ago
  > All I could think was that he put on that intervention for us few foreigners Nah. In Japanese culture, it's simply considered rude to be loud in trains.
  - timr 8y ago
    Still. I've never seen a conductor yell at anyone for being loud, especially in the cities. Maybe it happens in the inaka...
    - sho 8y ago
      Never seen a conductor do it, but I've seen other passengers lay into someone for being too rowdy or (especially) talking on the phone. Usually following a comically obvious build-up of red-faced anger over 5-10 minutes or so. Anecdotally I've heard that social censure is far more common and ruthless in the women's-only cars.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  That just sounds like an Asian in parental mode to me. Sounds just like my mom or dad when they've had enough. (Seriously, there was always a part of me thinking, "Why does Mom/Dad sound like they're in a Samurai drama?" I'm not even Japanese!)
- hkmurakami 8y ago
  Was this outside of a major metro area? The tone and conjugation of the word is surprising.
- guardiangod 8y ago
  It's possible they were talking about you in a less than flattering way thinking you don't understand Japanese, and the conductor had enough of it.
t413 8y ago
Those 'ultrasonic deterrents' should be completely illegal to deploy on/near any publicly accessible property. Having run into them many times over the years here in the US they're horrifically loud, painful, and less of a deterrent and more a punishment for having less-degraded hearing.
- fiblye 8y ago
  Agreed. I'm well beyond being a teenager, but I still hear these things. Some stores put them near their entrances and it's never a pleasant surprise.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Indeed. I'm 34 and can still hear them.
- ehnto 8y ago
  I used to go to the same food court nearly everyday for lunch during work. They had birds wander in, little sparrows, that would peck at the crumbs. Not that many of them if any at all. They deployed a constant sweeping high pitched noise emitter to combat the birds and it's impossible to be in the area now. I just can't imagine how they're legal or even sensible. I wonder if perhaps it wasn't a ploy to get the court to slow down and get the tenants to leave so they can redevelop it. It's been a local institution for some time.
- sjmulder 8y ago
  Completely agreed. There's this road I sometimes have in my running route where one of the residents there put one of these things in their front yard. It hurts my ears and, I'm afraid, my longer term hearing if it happens often enough. It's really loud. Who'd think it okay to inflict this sort of thing on people of _any_ age? It's also a blatant attempt at age discrimination.
rayiner 8y ago
This is great we need those everywhere.
- mcherm 8y ago
  I hear someone invented a special light which is uncomfortably hot when it interacts with darker skin, but doesn't (usually) affect those who are fair-skinned.[1] Statistics show that locations that deploy these lights have fewer minor crimes.[2] Do you think we should deploy these lights along with the squealers? If not, then why not -- what is different? [1] Not actually true (thank goodness). Fictional example was created for illustrative purposes only. [2] Not actually true (because the lights aren't real). But if they were real, this would almost certainly be true. Among other things, if you drive off a percentage of the population, then it decreases the number of people, and thus the number of crimes.
Tharkun 8y ago
These were sadly pretty common in the UK for a while, at the height of the ASBO-plague. I believe they're called 'mosquitos'.

booleandilemma 8y ago

Reminds me of how NYC subway trains now have arrows on the floor of the train cars directing people to step further in instead of just standing at the door and blocking everyone behind them (which seems to be an all too common behavior).

ionforce 8y ago
I've not convinced at how effective that is.
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  You and I both :)

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

Anecdote time... Tokyo train stations kinda suck. Coming from a few weeks in Malaysia and Singapore, it was interesting to see just how little and how poorly translated English is there. (They speak Japanese and not English, but lets be honest about it being the lingua franca) It was VERY DIFFICULT to figure out how their train colors worked, how Orange gets to Blue (it's a connect, but a couple blocks away). That Ginza station (iirc, might be wrong) has at least two names. Also, that none of the machines take cards! We were 11 yen short - about $0.10 for a ticket to the airport, and while the very nice workers were happy to explain where a few blocks away the ATM was, it would have been great if someone just threw a coin at us to get us to go away, different culture, I suppose had I asked someone would have given it to us, but I feel like in the USA it would have just been offered. Japan was a lot like NYC, the subway there is also more confusing than places like DC or Taipei.

bamboozled 8y ago
I found it very easy and each time I’ve asked for assistance I’ve received it. The stations are always manned with several staff so help is always available. On the Tokyo subway all trains and maps, signage and in cabin screens provide English labelling. What more do you need ? Edit: I have to add, the fact the trains a almost perfectly ontime, with little wait between services, always designed to meet capacity, are In great condition and spotless, I really don’t see how it “sucks”. In fact what more do you want out of a Subway?
- dahdum 8y ago
  There's a small learning curve but they do a great job on signage and maps. I kinda feel bad asking for assistance in Japan. Most of the times I needed help they went way beyond my expectations to assist.
ng12 8y ago
> They speak Japanese and not English, but lets be honest about it being the lingua franca If you go to Seoul they don't even have Romanized names for the train stations. Everything's in Hangul. For a massive system built primarily for Japanese speakers it's really pretty accessible. > Japan was a lot like NYC, the subway there is also more confusing than places like DC or Taipei. I mean, DC and Taipei are much smaller systems than NYC and (especially) Tokyo. There's also geographical concerns -- Tokyo is just huge and NYC is very oddly shaped. DC, Taipei, Boston, Chicago, etc are very radial which makes them easy to figure out.

tbabb 8y ago

> Operating on the theory that exposure to blue light has a calming effect on one’s mood, rail stations installed these LED panels as a suicide-prevention measure Color me completely skeptical. That sounds like superstition to me. It reports that rates declined after installation, but if they preferentially installed the lights in areas with high rates of suicide, then we should expect to see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean .

pwaivers 8y ago
It said that the lights led to a 84 percent decline in suicides attempts. That may not be true, but it is definitely way higher than "regression towards the mean" would cause.
- tbabb 8y ago
  One could not say what is "expected" without knowing either the statistics of suicides in Japanese train stations, or the statistics of where installations happened. If per-station variance is high, or if the installed stations were significant outliers (or both), 84% would be perfectly within expectation. I find it very hard to believe that the color of the light in the train station would sway a person's life-and-death decision. Plenty of things could, but "it's blue here" does not seem like one of them. "Colors have 'magical' effects on emotion" is a very woo-y thing to believe.
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    While I share your skepticism, there's is pretty solid evidence that strong white/blue light is effective in treating seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Ma...
    - mcherm 8y ago
      That fact along with any reason to believe that 84% of suicides are caused by SAD might help explain things. But that "fact" isn't remotely true.

pwaivers 8y ago

I was really hoping for more examples of crowd management and station design. This article only has a few examples, and none of them really explained why Japanese trains are so efficient.

fein 8y ago
The likely answer is that the Japanese are an efficient people in general. It's not surprising that a group of people following the same social norms would have an efficient system for public transport.
- contingencies 8y ago
  Americans would first build a three level carpark and gas station, then a strip mall with a drug store, take-away coffee and donuts. Then they would privatize the publicly funded station, at which time the service quality would tank and the entire facility would fall in to a state of minimum repair. Or something like that.
  - fein 8y ago
    Are we using reality here or whatever lives in your head? American public transit is public (government owned and run) and it still sucks. Additionally Japan, just like any other country, is going to build concessions and parking into/ around anything that draws enough people to merit an investment.
    - contingencies 8y ago
      Reality, depending on what you believe. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2017/oct/prescription-drug-costs-us-outlier http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/20... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doughnut_shops#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doughnut_shops#United_... https://www.nap.edu/read/10141/chapter/4#42 https://www.nap.edu/read/10141/chapter/4#42

JoeDaDude 8y ago

More on the shisa kanko Point-and-Call system here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-japan-trains https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-j... I've heard of people doing similar things with small children for safety reasons, things such as point both ways before crossing, and the old "fingers on noses before the door closes" for car doors.

jdtang13 8y ago
This is such an awesome system. It completely makes sense that your mindfulness will increase when you integrate your full body with a task, using your eyesight, gestures, and voice. It's quite similar to jotting down notes using pen-and-pencil and enunciating the object of study in order to remember it well. It is even similar to prayer and meditation, where incense and singing increases your own awareness.
- hkmurakami 8y ago
  It's also used in the factories in Japan to reduce errors (I worked in one as part of my training there)
CaptainZapp 8y ago
That was the most interesting takeaway. I was really wondering if train and tram conductors are practicing a low level version of kung-fu or so. Now I know why they do that. Very interesting & thanks for the link.
mlrtime 8y ago
The NYC subway operators do this as well. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mta-conductors-point-stopping-subway-station-article-1.3502286 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mta-conductors-point-sto...

__david__ 8y ago

I was very surprised to recognize one of the train-leaving jingles: https://youtu.be/470_2wt2t1o?t=41 https://youtu.be/470_2wt2t1o?t=41 Took me a second but I realized it was the same music that the old Mr. Do arcade machine (from 1982) plays when you get an extra man: https://youtu.be/5_BBQWed8Vk?t=434 https://youtu.be/5_BBQWed8Vk?t=434 So is this jingle an homage to the game, or did the game lift the melody from somewhere else?

rangibaby 8y ago
It’s the theme song from Astro Boy https://youtu.be/KGq6z1mEU9Q https://youtu.be/KGq6z1mEU9Q
- paulific 8y ago
  And they play it at Takadanobaba station which located in the area where Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, had his studio. (There is also a huge mural under the railway bridge outside featuring all of his characters)
bschwindHN 8y ago
Funny to hear that here, that's my local train station :)

contingencies 8y ago

I've been through mass transit systems in at least fifteen countries by this point. Japan (Osaka) didn't leave a huge impression, as plenty of countries in Asia have similar systems. Yesterday I caught the first inter-city mass transit in China from Guangzhou to Foshan, part of the aggressive infrastructural beginnings of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) megacity. The two cities' systems were evidently conceived and funded independently, with an interconnecting station design that terminates both systems in a big mess. Hauling a kid and luggage we first had to climb two huge flights of stairs (no lift), go through a stupid ineffective security screening, interface with a horrific UI to buy tickets, walk a substantial distance, descend, negotiate more stairs, walk a substantial distance again, and finally stand on a squashed platform. I did note they had anti-suicide barriers, but the lack of space made them more like anti-accident barriers. (Shanghai by contrast has full height doors on the platforms.) The actual metro ride was very pleasant and fast however and despite a crowded train (it was evening rush hour) and some ill passengers nearby we managed to emerge unscathed. Total cost from Guangzhou to Foshan: 6元 (about USD$1). IIRC I think John Young of cryptome published or shared something years ago on "the architecture of control" specifically discussing the physical environment of train stations. I remember it changed my perceptions of train stations even in the comparatively vacuous venue of Sydney's system. I just had a search but unfortunately couldn't find it.

pasbesoin 8y ago
Your comment made me look. I haven't read all of the following. http://observer.com/2010/12/the-original-wikileaker/ http://observer.com/2010/12/the-original-wikileaker/ This may not be specifically what you had in mind, but perhaps it pertains: https://archinect.com/features/article/149956364/the-whistleblower-architects-surveillance-infrastructure-and-freedom-of-information-according-to-cryptome-part-2 https://archinect.com/features/article/149956364/the-whistle... The Whistleblower Architects: surveillance, infrastructure, and freedom of information according to Cryptome (part 2) Nicholas Korody By Nicholas Korody Jul 7, '16 12:15 PM EST 0 Credit: Cryptome Credit: Cryptome This is the second half of a two-part interview with Cryptome, an online repository of leaked government secrets and other documents relevant to contemporary surveillance and its infrastructure. Cryptome is run by the architects Deborah Natsios and John Young, who live and work in New York City (any use of the first person is from Natsios' perspective). Part one, which you can read here, delves into their backgrounds and motivations. Part two deals more with their views on the contemporary city and the politics of information access. I was hoping you could draw something like a sketch of the city as you see it today, perhaps using New York, where you both live and work, as an example. How does surveillance operate in the city? How does information become a mechanism of control? I'm thinking a bit about your recent postings on Twitter of surreptitious surveillance cameras. Our place of work overlooks a long stretch of historic Broadway, the city's oldest north-south thoroughfare and a former native trail. Broadway charts a diagonal exception to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which famously overlaid a rectangular grid as a rationalizing technique to discipline wild Manhattan's island topography.Vibrant democracy has to make public space available for the unexpected, the creative, the dissenting without fear of reprisal Broadway's everyday percussion of taxis, fire engines, ambulance sirens, garbage trucks, barking dogs and toddler tantrums that reach our windows confirms that, in spite of the grid, eruptions of near-chaos have always been part of the creative hardscape. It's only when we join the anarchic materiality of street-level democracy as autonomous, anonymous or social pedestrians that we feel truly embodied in the living city. Vibrant democracy has to make public space available for the unexpected, the creative, the dissenting without fear of reprisal. Not visible from our upper aerie is the concealed architectonic of municipal grids superimposed in recent decades onto legacy disciplines of 1811. We cannot see vast information infrastructures that encode processes of worldwide economic restructuring whose capital, symbols, goods and bodies flow through the local interests of our relentlessly global city. Harnessing informational flows falls under the trending rubric of municipal 'smart' policies. Metropolitan governance has widely embraced market-driven best practices derived from global risk management approaches, as David Lyon notes. Their privatizing regimes are anticipating and controlling urban outcomes through risk calculations that mine big data from myriad sources. Most provocative are analytics gleaned from ubiquitous watching and tracking of bodies that make up the city's far-flung, mobile and diasporic populations. We are increasingly visible to invisible regimes. Cryptome's library for information equality works in small, daily increments to invert this diagram.We are increasingly visible to invisible regimes. As part of modest efforts to do our part to help shore up the diminishing public domain, Cryptome has been documenting in recent weeks the block-by-block smart upgrading of New York City's obsolete public telephony system. Trenches are being chopped along the street, rope pulled through underground innerduct, rebar placed to receive poured concrete, galvanized steel pedestals positioned with orange power cable and fiber poking out of conduit. Credit: Cryptome Credit: Cryptome Installed onto the legacy footprint of the city's former sidewalk payphone system, 7,500 to 10,000 'Structures' of the dispersed LinkNYC system will broadcast 'relevant' ads on 55” HD screens to subsidize the kiosks' free gigabit-speed Internet service, free public wi-fi, free domestic phone calls, free USB phone-charging outlets and a 911 emergency call button. Assemblages like these undergird smart cities that are consolidating around us, with boosterish zeal, for the supposed benefit of municipal efficiency, convenience and social equity. Big data collection technologies that enable the Internet of Things (IoT) are embedding into larger scale urban infrastructures towards that end. But can smart space be democratic public space when speech and acts are ubiquitously recorded and reported? Are apps 'free' when they harvest vast troves of personal data without consent? can smart space be democratic public space when speech and acts are ubiquitously recorded and reported?Wi-fi hotspots are notoriously insecure. Smartphones exude communications trails and geolocational clues. LinkNYC's multiple onboard sensors include microphones and concealed pinhole cameras that capture ambient data for 24/7 delivery to downstream analytics. Surveillant practices capture and process our digital traces as abstracted New Yorkers, fragmenting personal data into simulated identities stored in various databases or resold to data brokers. Jury pool lists, marriage licenses, voting records, civil disobedience misdemeanors, rifle permits and police dossiers––analog bureaucratic records that constituted an earlier idea of civic modernity––are now logged electronically. They coordinate with other databases, both commercial and municipal, through powerful data-mining analytics that reinforce the social partitions and economic divisions of the inequitably stratified city, as Lyon warns. During the 1960s, Jane Jacobs advocated 'eyes on the street' as a citizen-directed management of public space that invited watchful caring of neighbors and strangers. New Yorkers could make 911 calls seeking emergency assistance from the analog payphone system first installed in the 1920s. Credit: Cryptome Credit: Cryptome After 9/11, the NYPD deputized New Yorkers as para-policing informants, urging them to act on fear and suspicion: 'if you see something say something'. The vintage payphone system had fallen into disuse. Post-9/11 visualization and reporting regimes revealed risk management-style policing coordinating with command-and-control technologies developed for military battlespace and cyberwar. Preemptive war-gaming targeted Muslim neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Pakistani communities along Coney Island Avenue, public housing in the South Bronx and Bangladeshi enclaves in Kensington. A company that produces military mission control systems manufactures LinkNYC kiosks through a spin off entity. Installed along public sidewalks at a granular coverage of every 200 feet or so, the devices introduce an unprecedented urban apparatus: the coordinated automation and privatization of neighborhood-scale sensing and reporting derived from military command-and-control technology. Has LinkNYC been tracking Cryptome's movements through the city?LinkNYC joins stop-and-frisk policing and Lower Manhattan's Ring of Steel security cordon as one of the city's premier sensing and reporting technologies....

11thEarlOfMar 8y ago

In my first experience with trains in Japan, I had to take a jaunt that included a leg from Nagoya to Matsusaka. The train ride was about 90 minutes, and I was anxious about knowing which station to exit. I anticipated that the signage would all be in Japanese. So I asked the station attendant in Nagoya how I'd know when to get off. He looked at my ticket and said, "The train will stop at 1:11PM. You get off." The train stopped at promptly 1:11 PM, and I got off in Matsusaka.

oceanman888 8y ago
Been living in japan since 2011, you can search when train stops at where exactly now, including emergency info. And all station attendant have a booklet with all those stuff written, so all he had to do is to take a look at it. When it comes to government related system in japan they surprisingly works very well with outdated tech
dorfsmay 8y ago
I don't understand, isn't that how trains work everywhere? Otherwise how are the people in the next city supposed to know when they need to be there to board that train?
- rayiner 8y ago
  I mean there is a time posted, and it won’t leave earlier than that, but it may leave a lot later. Here is the delay distribution for the train I would take to work if it wasn’t so late: https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/history.php?train_num=111&station=Ncr&date_start=04%2F24%2F2018&date_end=05%2F24%2F2018&df1=1&df2=1&df3=1&df4=1&df5=1&df6=1&df7=1&sort=d_dp&sort_dir=DESC&co=gt&limit_mins=&dfon=1 https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/history.php?t...
  - stevekemp 8y ago
    > it won’t leave earlier than that, Except by accident: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44149791 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44149791

quantisan 8y ago

I witnessed a group of 20+ Latin American tourists boarding at some station and then getting off at Shinjuku the other day. One of them held the train door with his body while all 20+ of them strolled in the train nonchalantly. Then the same door blocker proceeded to scream out instructions to the rest of the group. They did the same thing on the way out. Usually there's a smooth flow of people entering and exiting as everyone seem to know where to go (left or right) because there are maps of train car # to every other station's exits on the line. While they were figuring out whether to go left or right on the platform, they were blocking everyone on that side of the platform right at Shinjuku (literally the busiest station on Earth). There are dozens of lines criss-crossing the city and every one of them is running accurate to the minute. We take it for granted living here. But boy, when articles like this come around every so often, mind blown. I never gave the crowd behavioural aspect of this system much thought. But this article reminded me of that incident with the tourists. It's impressive how behavioural quirks of the commuters are critical to the overall efficiency of the system. (obvious in hindsight) Thanks for sharing!

marak830 8y ago
There is so much here that couldn't work as it does, without the implicit assumption that everyone is going to behave politely. Hell the polite queuing after a major earthquake for water and food is absolutely astounding. The foreigners who don't try to live up to the social standards while living here should be shunned by the local gaijins.
- thedailymail 8y ago
  Re the polite queuing after earthquakes: I happened to be in Sendai the day of the big earthquake/tsunami/nuclear reactor breakdown. I had no place to stay because I had a flight booked for later that day, which obviously got canceled. I started walking around downtown. There was clearly a lot of nervous energy, and there were hundreds of aftershocks in the first 24 hours, but people were behaving calmly and orderly. I wandered into a hotel to see if I could book a room. They were fully booked, but were letting people who were stuck without a place to stay to sleep in a ballroom. They provided free sheets, pillows and food to about 100 people, many of them stranded foreigners. Some local volunteers brought in gas powered generators so people could charge their phones. The next morning, I went out for a walk, as it was still not possible to get out of town. At 8:00 in the morning, the supermarket in front of the central train station had staff, in uniform, handing out perishable food for free, rather than having to throw it away (there was no electricity so freezers were down.) The word was only starting to trickle in about how serious the damage was farther north. People were universally calm, generous and polite. I walked around for a few hours, not knowing the town. Many sites of severe structural damage, but some businesses were already open. I passed by a noodle shop run by a young guy. He called out to me and said "You look hungry." (I speak Japanese). He offered me a free bowl of noodles. I finally ended up getting out of town two days later by finding a cab and riding all the way to Fukushima Airport, for the last flight to Tokyo, and then back home to Kobe. The order, decency, and humanity I experienced those few days still make me tear up when I think about it (even right now).

jessiebeck3 8y ago

I visited Tokyo / Japan after two years living in Madagascar (talk about culture shock) and was so amazed at how orderly a crowd that could have otherwise been chaotic moved throughout these cramped spaces. At first I thought it was just cultural -- but not after reading this. Then again, intentional efforts to shift societal behavior, maybe that is a cultural product? Regardless, I would love to see what some of these "nudge" gestures look like in the U.S. How can we better design not just spaces but how humans interact with them?

sho 8y ago

> rail stations in Japan began installing these LED panels as a suicide-prevention measure Another technique they use is to play recorded birdsong and other "sounds of nature" at some open-air stations, which supposedly makes people feel more peaceful and relaxed. It's quite subtle, random and realistic-sounding and caused me quite a lot of confusion looking for the invisible birds before learning the truth!

latch 8y ago
The point of the bird sounds is to help visually impaired people find the exit (notice it's always coming from where the escalator starts).
- sho 8y ago
  Hm. Are you sure? I don't mean the repetitive "chirp" sound which is typical for guiding the visually impaired, most obviously at traffic signals. I mean actual birdsong recordings, played quite subtly at random intervals (ie, sometimes minutes apart). It would seem quite an impractical way to guide anyone. Anyway, my information is from a friend whose uncle works at Tokyo Metro, and has seen his fair share of jinshin jiko maguro. She was quite clear about the notion that it was an anti-suicide measure, and I believed her. I did only notice it on the Saikyou line.

lovemenot 8y ago

An announcement I heard recently at a major station was made in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. The station staff suggested that local passengers should feel free to offer assistance to any tourists who appear to need help. I felt crowd-sourcing passenger support is a good approach. The number of tourists in Tokyo is increasing considerably, but people in Japan often need prior affirmation that their behaviour would be socially acceptable.

kumarvvr 8y ago

Recently went to Japan. For a 'order' freak like me, it was heaven on earth. Not only in train stations, each and every aspect of their lives revolves around understanding human behavior and coming up with solutions to make activities as less confusing as possible. Their commitment to discipline is astounding. If everyone on earth were like the Japanese, our pace of technological, social and other forms of development would be 10x of what they are now.

CaptainZapp 8y ago
What I actually liked most is the following: Eating fermented fish out of a bento box, while gliding through Japan with 300km/h is completely acceptable, yacking away on your cell phone is not. It makes for a very pleasent (and delicious) atmosphere while using public transport.
- aikinai 8y ago
  I know you’re talking about bullet (or other express) trains where it’s expected to eat, but you’re definitely not supposed to do it on normal trains.
- lainga 8y ago
  Actually, you can talk on your phone in the bullet trains only, but you have to go to the compartments between carriages.
xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago
And millions of people suiciding extra in the world annually. I could argue that they are emotionally-socially less developed and they use cognition to evade dealing/accepting the feels. They also are behind on establishing relationships with other governments/cultures relative to their economical and technological status. Their population growth is also very low and close to declining, not enough people wanting kids. If you think your world is beautifull, then why suicide, why not want to share it with kids. Objectively one might argue it puts a hard stop to nature itself, as it's the base for human life to even exist. That doesn't seem natural (no pun) While we might not like open display of emotions and such, the underlying function is releasing (negative)emotions/energy. It's the people who keep it all in that tend to end up in a less than desirable place. In the west a lot of suicidal/depressed people have been helped succesfully through dealing openly with emotions. "Self imposed" cognitive restrictions and trying to hide emotions are often at the base of unhappiness or the aforementioned scenarios. Ending on a soft tone, the Japanese that do live happy are likely to enjoy it the longest of us all.

j7ake 8y ago

One missing ingredient is that the people have been trained to be orderly and respect and maintain the social order. Removing the blue lights, noise, arrows would do little to disrupt the order of this highly disciplined people, see how civility and order is maintained even after a major earthquake

nickpsecurity 8y ago

Japanese trains are also a great example of high-assurance system development in action. If you have IEEE or ACM, you can read a personal account of each of the stages they went through for the control systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1173109/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1173109/ There's also some other papers that go into detail on specific techs or rollouts: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3925287_Adaptive_step-by-step_construction_technique_achieving_high_assurance_for_Tokyo_Metropolitan_railway_network https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3925287_Adaptive_st... https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5207329/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5207329/ https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1262517 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1262517