A concealed object is detected under the jacket of an individual. (Provided by Cornes Technologies Ltd.)
The transport ministry is pushing plans to give railway personnel the authority to inspect the belongings of bullet train passengers, a move intended to prevent possible terrorist acts during the Tokyo Olympics.
Ministry officials are seeking to revise a ministerial order so the new security measures can start on July 1. The Summer Games are scheduled to start later that month.
The revision plan stems in part from an incident in June 2018, when a man on a Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train stabbed three passengers, one fatally.
Evening commuters at Oimachi Station in Tokyo on the JR Keihin-Tohoku Line on May 6 (Toshiyuki Hayashi)
East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) scrapped its reduced, anti-virus schedule in the Tokyo area on May 7 after commuters overcrowded the fewer trains available, increasing the risk of infection.
JR East, complying with requests from the central and Tokyo metropolitan governments, announced plans to curtail train services by 20 percent from regular levels on three days April 30, May 6 and 7.
The state of emergency over the novel coronavirus started on April 25 in Tokyo mainly to discourage people from going out during the Golden Week holidays.
But passenger numbers did not go down as anticipated.