East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) has developed an app containing about 4,700 English sentences for its train crews, to help them provide passengers with information as quickly as possible about various accidents and disruptions.
Crew members will use the app on tablet computers to make announcements to passengers about incidents ranging from accidents causing injury or death, to delays in train services. These English-language announcements have already begun on trains running on part of the JR Joban Line, and are being introduced from this month on 11 lines in the Tokyo metropolitan area, including the Yamanote Line, Keihin-Tohoku Line and Chuo Line.
According to JR East's Tokyo branch office, the new app features fixed audio phrases in English, such as one meaning that it is expected to take about one hour for service to resume, while another indicates that the train is running slowly for the sake of safety.
The app can confirm the name of the affected line, the expected delay time and other information based on information sent from the operation control system, thus automatically showing a list of possible announcements on the screen of the device.
Train crew members select target sentences from the list, and the app plays audio in English, which can be broadcast in train cars through microphones they wear or other means.
JR East developed a similar app in the past, but it had only about 600 fixed English phrases and required the crew members to select the names of affected lines and the reasons for disruptions. They also had to form sentences by combining these elements.
About two years ago, train drivers and other staff complained that the app made it difficult for them to convey what they wanted to say to passengers and that it took time to compose sentences. This prompted JR East to start developing a new one.
The audio in English was provided by a female driver who proposed the development of the new app. While studying in Britain for a short period, she made sure the English sentences would be understood.
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