Safety At The Platform

On the Yamate Line and the other main Lines in the Tokyo metropolitan area, fall-detection mats are widely used to stop trains immediately in cases when passengers fall onto the tracks from the platform. However, these can’t detect them in the track. Therefore, we have developed a high precision fall-detection system which utilizes image processing and other advanced technologies. This system adopts stereo cameras to monitor the fixed area of the track three-dimensionally. In cases when passengers fall onto the track, the system will automatically detect them and work to stop trains ensuring safety. This system annunciates “passengers’ falls” within a second when passengers may fall onto the track from the platform. Using the stereo image processing, the influence of shadows and reflected lights over the surrounding circumstances can be easily eliminated, which has been supposed to be difficult by mono-camera image processing [1]. Since one stereo camera covers the range of detection within 40 m, only six cameras are required to monitor the whole of the track when they are equipped in each platform of the Yamate Line in the Tokyo metropolitan area. This system analyzes one frame every 0.1 seconds. If passengers are falling onto the fixed area, this system annunciates not immediately, but more than three frames of passengers’ fall are observed consecutively. This is so the system is not influenced by the noises generated by accident. The outline of the total system and the processing will be presented in the paper.