Blades to be banned on Japanese trains from April

TOKYO — A ban on bringing knives and other cutting tools aboard trains is planned from next April following a revision to the relevant regulations soon to be made by the transport ministry in the wake of an incident in which a hatchet-wielding man killed one passenger and injured two others aboard a Tokaido Shinkansen train in June.

Although no penalties are planned to be included in the revision, it will become possible that violators will forcibly be made to get off the train by railway companies.

The Firearms and Swords Control Law, in principle, bans the possession of swords with blades 15 centimeters long or longer and similar tools. The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry will revise the railway transport regulations to explicitly state that bringing cutting tools, even small ones, aboard Shinkansen and other train lines is prohibited if they are not properly packed.

New guidelines will be established to specify the types of cutting tools that cannot be brought aboard trains, such as kitchen knives, scissors and saws. To deal with cases in which there is a special need to bring such tools aboard a train, the guidelines also stipulate how to pack or store them, such as covering their edges with cardboard and always keeping them in bags.

Following the revision, railway companies are likely to revise their own conditions of carriage to newly include regulations that stipulate, for example, making violators get off a train if they are found to have brought aboard specified cutting tools in an inappropriate manner.