Progress on installing protective barriers on Japan's train station platforms have stalled, according to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry. Railway companies have installed platform barriers on only 34, or 14 percent, of the 235 stations (with 100,000 or more passengers per day) for which the ministry had requested barriers.
The lack of barriers at the more crowded stations means that millions of passengers walk, stand and wait in dangerous conditions every day.
Nationwide, according to the ministry, only 539 of 9,500 train stations were equipped with platform barriers by September of this year. Along the Yamanote Line in central Tokyo, only two stations, Ebisu and Meguro, have barriers for the 3.7 million passengers who wait and walk on the platforms at Yamanote's 29 stations every day.