Japan: Smokers Raising Stink over JR Tokai''s Plan to Make Maglev Nonsmoking

Source from:  Asahi Shimbum (jp)  10/21/2013

Railway officials are touting thei

r new high-speed magnetic levitated train, which are expected to begin operations in 2027, the first in the nation, as cutting the travel time so much that smokers can resist the need to light up.

They'll have no choice, since the entire train will be nonsmoking and there will be no smoking rooms aboard, reflecting the growing public aversion to the smoke-filled cars of the past on the nation's railways.

"From Shinagawa (in Tokyo) to Nagoya, it takes only 40 minutes by maglev," said Yoshiomi Yamada, president of Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), operator of magnetically levitated train services, told a news conference on Oct. 17. "I am sure smokers can endure it."

A 500-kph maglev on the Chuo Shinkansen Line is expected to connect the two metropolises in about 40 minutes, compared to about one hour and 40 minutes by a bullet train.

"Smoking is not allowed on subways in Tokyo and Nagoya. We want to see as little trash as possible in our cars," Yamada added. JR Tokai runs the Tokaido Shinkansen Line from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka.

But the society of smokers, a private group, is asking for designated smoking rooms aboard the maglev, which are offered on some bullet trains.

"Even if a trip takes only 40 minutes, smokers want to have a puff," said Takashi Yamamori, 41, who heads the group's secretariat. "For businesspeople, their travel time is one of the few occasions in which they can relax."

Shinkansen services have mirrored the trend to shun smoking in public places.

When the former Japanese National Railways inaugurated the Tokaido Shinkansen Line service in 1964, all of the bullet train's 12 cars were smoking cars. It wasn't until 12 years later that a nonsmoking car was introduced to the Kodama bullet train. But smoking was prohibited in only one car of the 16-car Kodama.

The right to a smoke-free environment entered public consciousness in Japan after studies in the United States linked smoking to lung cancer.

In 1980, a group of lawyers and academics filed suit, demanding that more cars of JNR trains, including bullet trains, should be designated as nonsmoking. The public has also become more conscious of the dangers of passive smoking.

In 1996, nonsmoking cars outnumbered smoking cars on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line. Seven years later, a law took effect to prevent secondhand smoke at train stations and other venues where a large number of people congregate.

East Japan Railway Co., which operates Shinkansens on routes to the Tohoku region and Niigata Prefecture, where many sightseeing spots are located, switched to nonsmoking cars for all of its bullet trains in 2007.

On the Tokaido Shinkansen Line, all cars of the N700 model are nonsmoking, but the train offers four smoking rooms. The 700 model offers smoking cars.

Kyoichi Miyazaki of the Japan Society for Tobacco Control, a Tokyo-based academic nonprofit organization, welcomed JR Tokai's no-smoking policy on its maglev service, saying the public transportation system should be nonsmoking because children and the elderly also use it.

"The protection of passengers from cigarette smoke is stipulated under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control," Miyazaki said, referring to the treaty, which took effect in 2005. "Some people even get sick smelling cigarette smoke clinging to their clothes." Enditem