Accidents of Blind Travelers in Mass Transit system

为了使视障者充分参与日本的主流生活，使他们能够独立使用快速公共交通铁路线是非常重要的。然而，当他们试图独自使用铁路线时，几乎总是遇到各种各样的困难。其中，在火车站台上移动是视障旅客最危险和最紧张的过程之一，这主要是因为他们面临着从站台上跌落的危险。事实上，曾有不少视障人士从月台堕下致死的福尔斯个案。我们搜集了不少视障人士从月台福尔斯的个案，并对其中一些具代表性的例子作了尽可能精确的分析。此外，还测量了视障者的方向性和移动性（O & M）的一些基本特征，以解释事故的原因。本文探讨了视障者的操作与运动特点与站台福尔斯坠落事故的关系，并提出了制定预防站台坠落事故措施的基本思路。

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.