Japan’s railway companies going high-tech to beat the heat

TOKYO —Japan railway companies are stepping up their efforts to beat the heat, in response to a series of passengers suffering heatstroke in trains and stations.

With the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics set for next summer, railway companies operating in the Tokyo metropolitan area are using cutting-edge technology such as automatically turning up air conditioners near busy stations or adopting special window glass to shut out ultraviolet rays.


One morning in early July, the interior of a train on the JR Yamanote Line was hot and humid due to the mass of passengers. However, as the train approached Ikebukuro, one of Tokyo’s biggest terminal stations, it gradually became cooler.

The air conditioning in a train is usually set at a certain temperature. But starting three years ago East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) has used big data regarding the number of passengers in different times and zones to introduce train cars that automatically lower the temperature of air conditioners before trains arrive at busy stations where many people will get on.

The trains also choose the appropriate temperature based on the combined weight that passengers exert on the floor.

Leading railway companies, including Tokyo Metro Co., Odakyu Electric Railway Co. and Hankyu Corp. have installed a similar system to automatically adjust temperatures in their trains.


JR East and Seibu Railway Co. are using on some trains glass equipped with special metal and filters that absorb UV and infrared rays.

A spokesperson of Tokyo-based AGC Inc., one of the manufacturers of the glass, said, “The special materials can keep the sun and heat out, and avoid a rise in temperature within the trains.”

Heatstroke cases soar

According to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, the average congestion rate in major railways in fiscal 2017 was 163 percent in the Tokyo metropolitan area and 125 percent in the Osaka metropolitan area, with the rate reaching close to 200 percent in some zones during commuting hours.

“More passengers become sick in crowded trains in summer because heat and odors stay inside the trains,” a railway official said.

According to the Tokyo Fire Department, 346 people were sent to the hospital from stations and trains with apparent heatstroke from June to September 2018, three times more than the previous year. The Fukuoka Fire Prevention Bureau reported 15 people, and the Nagoya City Fire Bureau reported 74 when the number of sufferers at bus terminals were included. The Osaka City Fire Department said ambulances were dispatched 89 times.

These numbers are all two to seven times the levels recorded in the previous year.

Heatstroke among passengers can also cause delays in train schedules. If trains stop between stations for a long time, more passengers may suffer health problems. Countermeasures against heat are crucial tasks for railway companies.

Medical checks

Keio Corp. has solicited opinions on its website about the temperatures in its trains, by asking passengers to evaluate the volume of air and temperatures of air conditioning in the trains they took by zone, time and boarding location, so as to utilize the feedback in its operations.

During the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics next summer, stations near venues and major stations are expected to be greatly crowded. In July and August, JR East plans to set up a system at some stations on a trial basis in which people whose health condition has deteriorated can be diagnosed by videophone, under a partnership with hospitals in Tokyo.

The railway company also plans to station nurses at Sendagaya and Shinanomachi stations near the new National Stadium when the Jingu Gaien Fireworks Festival is held next month.

At a press conference on July 3, JR East President Yuji Fukasawa said, “We’ll thoroughly examine the effects and issues and make use of them during the Games.”

“Some people could develop symptoms of heatstroke, such as dizziness and nausea, even though they’re on trains not exposed to direct sunlight,” said Toshiki Mano, a professor at Chuo University who is also a physician well versed in heatstroke. “It’s necessary to drink fluids frequently when traveling, and take other measures such as changing to the next train depending on the congestion and one’s health condition.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Warming report sees violent, sicker, poorer future

WASHINGTON  — Starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease already lead to human tragedies. They’re likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change, a leaked draft of an international scientific report forecasts.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will issue a report next March on how global warming is already affecting the way people live and what will happen in the future, including a worldwide drop in income. A leaked copy of a draft of the summary of the report appeared online Friday on a climate skeptic’s website. Governments will spend the next few months making comments about the draft.

“We’ve seen a lot of impacts and they’ve had consequences,” Carnegie Institution climate scientist Chris Field, who heads the report, told The Associated Press on Saturday. “And we will see more in the future.”

Cities, where most of the world now lives, have the highest vulnerability, as do the globe’s poorest people.
“Throughout the 21st century, climate change impacts will slow down economic growth and poverty reduction, further erode food security and trigger new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger,” the report says. “Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low- and lower-middle income countries and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries with increasing inequality.”

For people living in poverty, the report says, “climate-related hazards constitute an additional burden.”

The report says scientists have high confidence especially in what it calls certain “key risks”:

—People dying from warming- and sea rise-related flooding, especially in big cities.
—Famine because of temperature and rain changes, especially for poorer nations.
—Farmers going broke because of lack of water.
—Infrastructure failures because of extreme weather.
—Dangerous and deadly heat waves worsening.
—Certain land and marine ecosystems failing.

“Human interface with the climate system is occurring and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems,” the 29-page summary says.

None of the harms talked about in the report is solely due to global warming nor is climate change even the No. 1 cause, the scientists say. But a warmer world, with bursts of heavy rain and prolonged drought, will worsen some of these existing effects, they say.

For example, in disease, the report says until about 2050 “climate change will impact human health mainly by exacerbating health problems that already exist” and then it will lead to worse health compared to a future with no futher warming.

If emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil and gas continue at current trajectories, “the combination of high temperature and humidity in some areas for parts of the year will compromise normal human activities including growing food or working outdoors,” the report says.

Scientists say the global economy may continue to grow, but once the global temperature hits about 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than now, it could lead to worldwide economic losses between 0.2 and 2.0 percent of income.

One of the more controversial sections of the report involves climate change and war.

“Climate change indirectly increases risks from violent conflict in the form of civil war, inter-group violence and violent protests by exacerbating well-established drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks,” the report says.

Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn’t part of the international study team, told the AP that the report’s summary confirms what researchers have known for a long time: “Climate change threatens our health, land, food and water security.”

The summary went through each continent detailing risks and possible ways that countries can adapt to them.

For North America, the highest risks over the long term are from wildfires, heat waves and flooding. Water — too much and too little — and heat are the biggest risks for Europe, South America and Asia, with South America and Asia having to deal with drought-related food shortages. Africa gets those risks and more: starvation, pests and disease. Australia and New Zealand get the unique risk of losing their coral reef ecosystems, and small island nations have to be worried about being inundated by rising seas.

Field said experts paint a dramatic contrast of possible futures, but because countries can lessen some of the harms through reduced fossil fuel emissions and systems to cope with other changes, he said he doesn’t find working on the report depressing.

“The reason I’m not depressed is because I see the difference between a world in which we don’t do anything and a world in which we try hard to get our arms around the problem,” he said.

source: business.inquirer.net

Record highs set as heat wave continues in Southern California

Record temperatures were set for a second day in a row on Thursday as triple-digit heat continued to scorch inland areas of Southern California.

The blistering weather, which is expected to be even hotter on Friday, will continue through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

The heat wave, coupled with power plant equipment failures, prompted officials Thursday to issue a statewide Flex Alert, asking customers to cut back on electricity usage during peak hours between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Record highs for the day were set in Lancaster, which reached 109 degrees. That broke a record of 106 set in 1980, the Weather Service said. Woodland Hills also topped out at 109, beating by one degree a record set in 2006. A record of 95 was also recorded at Sandberg in the Antelope Valley. The previous record of 92 was set in 2002.

In Orange County, Lake Forest recorded 97 degrees and Yorba Linda was 96 degrees.

In the Inland Empire, Elsinore topped out at 112 degrees, while San Bernardino and Chino each hit 105.

Forecasters have issued an excessive heat warning through Friday for several spots in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, including mountain ranges and valleys, with triple-digit heat projected in much of the region.

source: latimes.com