Accidents of Blind Travelers in Mass Transit system

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It is very important that visually impaired people are able to utilize rapid mass transit railway lines independently with a view of their full participation in the mainstream of Japanese life. Yet they almost always encounter a variety of difficulties while they try to use railway lines by themselves. Among those, to move on train platforms is one of the most dangerous and stressful processes for visually impaired travelers and this is mainly due to that they face to a danger to fall from platforms. In fact, many fatal falls of the visually impaired from platforms have been reported. We have collected many cases of falls of the visually impaired from platforms and some of the representative examples were analyzed as precisely as possible. In addition, some fundamental characteristics of orientation and moblity(O & M) of the visually impaired were also measured to account for the causes of the accidents. In this paper the relationship between the characteristics of O & M of the visually impaired and falls from platforms is discussed and some basic ideas to set up measures to prevent such accidents are proposed.