Chapter　5　 Traffic Safety, Disaster Prevention, and Environmental Preservation

5. 1　Traffic Safety

5. 1. 1　Traffic Accidents

　 　A profile of traffic accidents (by mode) reported in 1977 follows:
　 　Road traffic accident on a steady decline since 1971 were reduced, with the number of fatalities declining by 46.6% from a record high in 1970. Railroad accidents, fell in terms of both operational troubles and casualities. Marine accidents also fell considerably from the preceding year. Private airline accidents in Japan fell greatly in both the number of cases and the number of casualities. Casuality cases in 1977 decreased in every mode of transport. (See Table 9.)

5. 1. 2　Promotion of Traffic Safety Measures

　 　The Ministry of Transport has long been engaged in the promotion of traffic safety measures according to the basic traffic safety program. Each year, the Ministry of Transport sets out traffic safety policies and carries out vigorous campaigns to enforce them, consolidating previous measures to reduce traffic accidents in every mode of transport. As regards road traffic, the Transport Technology Council worked out a long-range safety engineering and control plan for improving vehicles in both design and equipment for enhancing safety.
　 　In addition, truck carriers are under tight control in dispatching operations and equipment maintenance services for the purpose of minimizing accidents.
　 　For railroad traffic, efforts are being made to improve the traffic environment, educate train railroad personnel, and supervise and guide railroad operators to ensure safe railroad services. Maritime safety measures were also enhanced through improvement of sea traffic environments, according to the Fifth Five-Year Plan for Ports and Harbors Improvement; optimized control of shipping operations; additional administrative guidance on navigation safety; formulation of safety standards for ships; strengthening the ship inspection system; and increasing rescue forces.
　 　To improve air safety, airport facilities and flight safety installations were reinforced according to the Third Five-Year Airport Improvement Plan. Along with this, each Air Traffic Control Center was integrated with an air route control data processing system.