Yoshinobu Katagata explains the importance of safety during a training session for JR East employees on July 3 in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward.
13:17 JST, September 23, 2024
Yoshinobu Katagata, a senior engineer at East Japan Railway Co. (JR East), received a doctorate from the University of Tsukuba with a dissertation on the history of railway accident prevention technologies.
The dissertation was the result of his hard work after he turned 70.
Katagata, 73, has been involved in rail safety since the days of Japan’s National Railways, which was later privatized and split into several companies, including JR East. He currently works in the company’s Safety Management Department.
“There is no goal attached to taking measures to achieve ultimate security,” Katagata said.
Katagata studied fluid power engineering at Ibaraki University and joined the Japanese National Railways in 1976. There he designed signaling systems and marshalling yards for the Tohoku Shinkansen line, which was under construction for its opening in 1982. He was later involved in the development of operational safety equipment such as the Automatic Train Stop System (ATS).
Katagata still remembers an accident that occurred on December 5, 1988, after the Japanese National Railways was privatized.
A train stopping at Higashi-Nakano Station on the Chuo Line was struck from behind by the train behind it, killing the driver of the train behind it and a passenger, and injuring 116 people. It was the first fatal accident for JR East.
The driver of the train behind had noticed an alarm from the ATS system but had not braked appropriately, causing the train to pass a stop signal.
In 1987, the ATS-P system, which is more advanced than the ATS system and automatically brakes, was already used on some train lines. However, the Chuo Line was not equipped with the ATS-P system at the time of the accident.
Katagata was convinced that the number of accidents caused by human error could be reduced, but not completely eliminated.
Immediately after the accident, JR East accelerated the installation of the ATS-P system and also drew up the “priority plan for improving safety equipment”.
Katagata has been involved in the plan since its inception. The plan was renamed the Group Safety Plan and underwent its seventh revision this fiscal year. He again participated in its formulation.
Share with the younger generation
In 2021, after reaching retirement age and becoming a contract employee at JR East, he enrolled in the doctoral program of the Graduate School of Policy and Planning Sciences of the University of Tsukuba.
Before his transfer, when he was responsible for training younger employees in safety, he felt that academically systematizing the practice of safety measures would make it easier to understand the practice.
The topic of his thesis is the history of technologies to prevent trains from passing stop signals. To write the thesis, Katagata analyzed the record of accidents and near-misses of JR East since fiscal year 1958 and researched their situations and numbers. He also studied literature from foreign railway companies.
The thesis confirms that improving the rules for drivers and creating suitable systems to eliminate human error, a factor that causes accidents, can also reduce the workload for drivers.
Katagata completed his doctoral studies in the spring and received a doctorate. He will share his 90-page thesis with the younger generation now responsible for safe train operations.
“While the equipment continues to develop, I hope they will not rely on it too much and will always give top priority to building safety mechanisms,” Katagata said.
