Investigation On Legislation Of Japan Railway Transport Security

Transport security is the integrated representation of normally operated transport system, life and property insurance of passengers and well-preserved goods and transport equipment. As a key factor of railway transport products, it is significant in the development process of the railway reform. And the nature of the rail transport requires the transport security be placed in an important position. Throughout the development of Japan railway reform, there was a rapid progress of its railway industry. Since the first railway was built in 1872,the industry experienced the railway laying state owned period, state owned implementation period, post war renaissance period, and privatization reform period. Against this background, there gradually developed a group of railway laws which were based on the basic railway laws like Law of Railway Enterprise and Law of Railway Business and supplemented with other relative regulations like industry regulatory, safety management, technical standards and accident investigation. Japan has a priority of the legislation in the field of railway transport security. On one hand, it privatizes the state owned railways, effectively separating the government administration and enterprise management, rationalizing the security organization system of government and enterprise railway transport and clarifying the responsibilities. Its railway transport security organization system mainly consists of the administrative departments leaded by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and internal security management departments established by the railway enterprises. The railway security management organizations within Transport Ministry include Minister’s Secretariat, Comprehensive policy Bureau, Railway Bureau, Local Transport Bureau, and Transport Safety Board. They are fully responsible for the safety of railway transport by amending the railway laws and decrees, evaluating and supervising the safety of the transportation enterprises, and developing safety countermeasures and accident investigation methods. Correspondingly, the enterprises set up daily safety management system and special safety propulsion system to implement the functions of transportation security. On the other hand, Japan strengthens its safety management system by Congress System Practices which focus on adding the legislative purpose of the transportation security and the safety supervisor of transportation enterprises, establishing the obligation of safety management regulations and increasing information disclosure. In the perspective of improving the safety supervision system, Japan legislation clarifies the rules of reporting and monitoring. The enterprises are obliged to submit not only the annual security report, but also the accident report and business report under different circumstances. The supervision rules emphasize to implement the functions of government and enterprise supervision from two aspects:internal supervision and external supervision. In the technical field of railway, Japan has revised series of technical benchmarks and railway crossing improvement laws. In addition to the strict technical standards in the improvement of equipment, it focuses on the people’s initiative and makes common progress both on the hardware and software. In crossing improvement, Japan puts forward five years improvement plan gradually promoting the process of crossing improvement by area. Finally, in the accident prevention, it is committed to the cooperation of government regulation and corporate self-discipline to accelerate the safety education and research work. And in the after-treatment, it emphasizes the independence and discipline of the accident investigation, the strictness and prudence on how to deal with the responsible persons, and the definition of the accident prevention and treatment methods on the legislative level.In short, from the perspective of the railway reform in Japan, the legislation of railway transport security, as the first means of regulation and management of the railway, plays a leading role. The legislative priority ensures the related reforms of railway safety to advance in the right direction and proceed smoothly. Therefore, in the key period of the development and reform of railway in our country, we should draw lessons from the advanced experience of Japan Railway Transport Safety Legislation, and combine with China’s actual situation to promote the legislation process of railway transport security, optimize the railway safety supervision system, improve the railway safety technology, equipment and level-crossing, develop the railway safety investigation agencies, and actively accelerate the study of railway safety legislation. We must strive to move forward with the synchronized and coordinated pace between the reform and development.