Japanese Train Operators Will Complete Staff With Anti-Pisau Umbrellas

Illustration of train services in Japan. (Wikimedia Commons/Farrell010427)

JAKARTA - The operator of the train network in western Japan, JR West, will equip its staff with a knife-proof umbrella, to help staff quickly evacuate passengers in the event of a knife attack.

The initiative comes after a number of knife attacks on trains in Japan, including an incident at one of the JR West airport line services in July 2023, when three people were injured by a man carrying a knife, quoted from Kyodo News November 20.

These umbrellas are made of special cloth that is knife resistant and has a one meter long axis. The umbrella is designed to allow flight crews to fend off or slow down attackers so as to give passengers time to escape.

The company will install two special umbrellas each on about 600 trains, including express services connecting cities in western Japan such as Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, as well as on the route to Kansai airport in Osaka Prefecture at the end of this fiscal year until March next year.

Although the JR West train is equipped with plastic shields intended to be used in such emergency situations, many crews say they are afraid to use it because they have to approach the attackers.

Meanwhile, this specially designed umbrella will have a long axis and allow the train crew to be at a safer distance.

This umbrella was developed by the maker of security equipment at the request of JR West. It weighs about 700 grams, lighter than the plastic shield, so it can be handled easily, taking into account the increase in the number of female crews, according to JR West.

It is known, a number of knife attacks occurred on trains in Japang. For example, an attack in 2021 that injured several people in Tokyo on the Odakyu and Keio lines.

In 2018, a man with a machete killed one person and injured two others on a packed bullet train headed for Shin-Osaka from Tokyo.