JR installs anti-suicide lighting on platforms

[Darth Demon]

Source: Japantoday.com Article

"TOKYO — East Japan Railway (JR East) is installing blue mood-lighting in its stations in a bid to stop people committing suicide on the tracks of a busy Tokyo line. The blue LED ceiling lamps have already been fitted at seven stations of the Yamanote line, which is used by millions a day, and will be fixed at all 29 stops by late October, a JR East spokesman said.

“Blue is said to make people’s minds more serene. The blue lighting is in part an effort to prevent suicides, while it is also aimed at reducing misdemeanors such as graffiti and littering,” he said.

In the first half of the year, police recorded 17,076 suicides, up 768 or 4.7% from the same period last year, according to the National Police Agency, which said one third of suicides were linked to financial problems. Sixty-eight people committed suicide at stations operated by JR East in the year to March, up from 58 the year before and 42 in 2006."

 

[Sakunyuusha]

Very interesting: because in our culture, blue is the color most commonly associated with sadness, and so it would be one of the last colors I would expect somebody to pick for this sort of project.

 

[lickylicky]

:...: Is that why they made that movie Suicide Club. I watch that japanese movies like years ago wear they just kill themselves jump off a train or building. :wait: Tomorrow will be better and live as long as you can to see whats happens.

If the sterotype about Japan is true about to much pressure and nothing to look forward to. Then holy crap :crash: 17,076 suicides to high. Hearing these stuff depress me :crash: want gods power to change the world.

 

[CoolKevin]

I will keep it serene, I like blue, (sorry for all those using dark mode in Akiba)
That is an a lot of suicides in a tear, I thought it would be less than that for the whole world, I hope it stops and everybody can have peaceful life, I am sorry for the families left behind

 

[Rakshasa]

Been a while since I took the Yamanote... Should take a trip to check the new lights out.

 

[guy]

Haven't seen the new blue lights on the Yamanote, but I'm not sure why they put it on that line -- that's not the line where most people jump from.

Then again, the line that most people do jump from has installed platform barricades (iirc) in order to stop suicides. So it may be that they want to prevent jumpers from using the Yamanote (probably the busiest line in Tokyo).

 

[Ceewan]

Using colors to influence moods is nothing new and is done worldwide. Never seen this particular approach before though, interesting experiment. Chromotherapy is sometimes referred to as light therapy or colourology and is still used today as a holistic or alternative treatment. Most psychologists view color therapy with skepticism and point out that the supposed effects of color have been exaggerated and positive effects short lived.

Wiki has an article on this but I didn't like it much as I didn't find it very informative,(the subject on psychology was incomplete and a little out of date), and had to look elsewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_symbolism_and_psychology

Some cute links on the subject of color psychology some may or may not enjoy:
http://www.webdesign.org/web/web-de...r-psychology-quick-reference-cards.13826.html
http://www.devoe.com/colorfeatures/colorpsychology.jsp
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-color-psychology.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/27066/psychology/nlcolorpsych.html

 

[Darth Demon]

More Tokyo train stations start using lights to stem suicides

Source: Japan Today Article

"TOKYO — Alarmed by a rise in people jumping to their deaths in front of trains, some Japanese railway operators are installing special blue lights above station platforms they hope will have a soothing effect and reduce suicides.

As of November, East Japan Railway Co has put blue light-emitting diode, or LED, lights in all 29 stations on Tokyo’s central train loop, the Yamanote Line, used by 8 million passengers each day.

There’s no scientific proof that the lights actually reduce suicides, and some experts are skeptical it will have any effect. But others say blue does have a calming effect on people.

“We associate the color with the sky and the sea,” Mizuki Takahashi, a therapist at the Japan Institute of Color Psychology, a private research center that was not involved in the lighting project. “It has a calming effect on agitated people, or people obsessed with one particular thing, which in this case is committing suicide.”

Suicide rates in Japan have risen this year amid economic woes, and could surpass the record 34,427 deaths in 2003.

Last year, nearly 2,000 people committed suicide in Japan by jumping in front of a train, about 6 percent of such deaths nationwide.

In Tokyo, the number of suicides at stations run by East Japan Railways rose to 68 for the year through March from 42 two years earlier.

That’s causing more train delays, with conductors describing them over public address systems as “human accidents.”

East Japan Railway has spent about 15 million yen for the special lights at all the Yamanote stations.

The lights, which are brighter than standard fluorescent bulbs, bathe the platform below in an eerie blue light. They hang at the end of each platform, a spot where people are most likely to throw themselves in front of a speeding train, said Norimitsu Suzuki, a company spokesman.

Another company, Keihin Electric Express Railway Co, which operates in Tokyo and nearby Yokohama, also installed the blue lights at two stations last year after there were two suicides within a month at one of the two stations.

“We thought we had to do something to save lives,” Keihin Railway spokesman Osamu Okawa said.

“We know there is no scientific proof that blue lights will help deter suicides. But if blue has a soothing effect on the mind, we want to try it to save lives,” Okawa said. But he declined to say whether the number of suicides at the two stations has decreased since the lights were set up.

Shinji Hira, a psychology professor specializing in criminal psychology at Fukuyama University in Hiroshima, speculated that blue lights could make people pause and reflect.

But he said that if railways want to go further to ensure safety, they should set up fences on platforms, as several Tokyo subway stations have. The barriers have sliding doors that allow passengers access to the trains.

East Japan Railway, one of numerous private train operators in Tokyo, said it may construct similar platform fences on all Yamanote line stations by 2017—but that’s a far bigger project than installing the blue lights."

 

[Ceewan]

they should set up fences on platforms

That would seem logical, lol! Beats the hell out of the bluelight affect now, you think?

 

[Asvaldr]

While it would seem logical, those fences that they're talking about on the subway platforms are none too big. I don't see what would stop someone from hopping the fence and doing the same thing they intended to do anyway. It's just one more pain in the ass for them to deal with before ending their lives.

 

[Sakunyuusha]

A fence is like a challenge. And when you've got that low of self-esteem, you're sometimes willing to do whatever it takes to "fuck the Man," as it were, and show society that you're not a loser. Paradoxically, you do it by doing something few would dare to do: ending your own life, which makes you the ultimate loser (seeing as you just lost the ultimate prize). So you go ahead and you climb that fence and you throw yourself out onto the track before anyone can pull you back. 'Cause you're gonna show them that no fence is gonna hold you back. You're gonna show 'em just how powerless they are, and how empowered you are, to decide your own destiny with your own free will. That's what I think could possibly be going through some of these guys' heads, and that's probably what the JR wants to avoid: is double-daring them to make good on their suicidal challenge.

Blue lights, on the other hand, aren't going to be perceived as a challenge except by those individuals who already know why the lights are blue in the first place.

[/devil's advocate]

Otherwise I agree 100% that a fence would be an excellent means of preventing 99% of all accidental railway casualties and a good portion of the purposeful ones as well.

 

[guy]

And since 100% of all lengthy, expensive lawsuits are due to those 99% of accidents, the fences are an excellent measure.

Just a couple weeks ago a woman had brought her wheelchair-ridden mother to the platform via elevator, and stopped just momentarily to close the door (so as to return it quickly to other people waiting for the elevator). The platform area surrounding the elevator was slightly sloped, but enough that her mother rolled off the platform, and did not survive the fall.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200910280127.html

 

[Pervane]

how about improving social and economical conditions and trying to change the idea that committing a suicide is not an honourable way but giving up as a looser

 

[Ceewan]

how about improving social and economical conditions and trying to change the idea that committing a suicide is not an honourable way but giving up as a looser

There is something to be said for that.

I don't claim to be an expert, there are enough of those here already, yet I have always got the impression that historically suicide was considered an optional and honorable way to die in Japan. Perhaps there are only certain circumstances where this is true, I don't know. I have never understood exactly why it is considered wrong to commit suicide myself, that doesn't mean I am in any way pro-suicide, however being able to choose the time and method of ones own death does seem to have a certain feel of "basic human rights". Euthanasia advocates make arguments along these lines.

Of course it seems damn insensitive to do it in front of strangers and make someone else clean up the mess you made.

 

[Aqua2213]

Quote:
they should set up fences on platforms

That would seem logical, lol! Beats the hell out of the bluelight affect now, you think?

Thet should get rid of the trains and have everybody walk.
The exercise would lift their spirits.