Photo/Illutration Police examine the Keio Line train cars where a knife attack occurred and a fire was started the night before on Halloween, in Inagi, western Tokyo, on Nov. 1. (Hikaru Uchida)

Japan has been shocked by another indiscriminate attack on passengers on a running train.

There is no telling when and where a similar act of violence will be committed on another train.

Railway operators and the transport ministry should make all-out efforts to secure the safety of passengers by developing emergency response plans to deal with various possible situations based on shared expertise.

A man brandishing a knife stabbed an elderly male passenger and then splashed oil around the train car and set it ablaze on a Keio Corp. train in Chofu, western Tokyo, on Oct. 31.

The victim is in critical condition and 16 other passengers were rushed to the hospital.

The attacker, a 24-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, reportedly told investigators that he had been inspired by a similar stabbing rampage that occurred in August on an Odakyu Line train.

He said he targeted a limited express train because “it stops at fewer stations.”

In addition to the attacker’s behavior, what also stunned the public was video footage showing passengers fleeing the train through windows because its doors were not opened immediately after it made an emergency stop.

To glean crucial lessons from the incident, it is vital to thoroughly review what happened during the 15 minutes until the attacker was overwhelmed by police officers who rushed to the crime scene.

All the actions taken, including the driver’s decision not to open the doors immediately after the train stopped at a station, need to be reconstructed and examined.

According to Keio and the transport ministry, the driver and the conductor learned that something unusual was occurring when an emergency call button was pressed by a passenger.

Since passengers were in a panic, however, the officers were unable to speak with any of them through the intercom to find out immediately what was happening.

The train slowed and stopped at the next station. Since the emergency door release system was activated, the train’s doors and the platform screen doors were not aligned appropriately when it stopped.

The driver and the conductor did not open the doors because of safety concerns. This forced many passengers to escape through train windows.

The transport ministry and train operators discussed the issue and decided to open the doors in a similar situation in the future.

This is a cautionary tale about the difficulty of taking appropriate actions in response to an unexpected emergency.

One powerful tool for detecting early signs of such incidents and other emergencies in trains is a security camera system installed inside the cars. But not all trains are equipped with such a surveillance system. The Keio train had no security cameras installed.

The rail companies that have introduced a security camera system to monitor situations inside train cars have taken measures to protect the privacy of passengers, such as allowing only the staff at their railway control rooms to monitor security camera footage. This is another issue that requires clear and appropriate rules.

In response to another attack on train passengers, the transport ministry has called on train operators to take additional security measures including those to enhance security patrols on their trains.

It is, of course, important to take steps to prevent acts of violence. But it is next to impossible to make train services, used by large numbers of the  public, completely protected from attacks.

Limiting damage from possible attacks as much as possible requires developing effective manuals for responding to emergencies, constant exercises based on the manuals and efforts to make the content of the manuals widely known to the public.

Train companies need to prepare for a wide range of risks. Tackling this challenge requires a lot of money and manpower.

But railway companies have to make steady efforts to become well-prepared for potential risks from the viewpoint of their principal mission, which is to operate train services safely.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 4

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