Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism has changed the way it measures crowding on trains, abandoning decades-old newspaper- and magazine-based metrics.
The Ministry publishes regular reports detailing congestion rates in major metropolitan areas. Those documents have previously used the charming illustration below to depict different levels of crowding:
Machine translation of the categories in the above illustration yield the following explanations:
Last Friday, the Ministry published its latest congestion report [PDF] and ditched both the graphic and newspaper/magazine metric, which Japanese media report have been used since at least 2001.
The changes to congestion ratings are explained as necessary to make them more up-to-date, and to reflect the opinions of "experts and others."
The Register suspects one reason for the change is that nobody reads physical newspapers or magazines any more, making ratings based on printed publications archaic.
The new ratings are:
The Register's famous Standards Converter offers excellent ways to measure area, force, length, temperature, volume, weight, velocity, and money.
This news from Japan suggests we should also contemplate a metric for train crowding.
If so, how do you suggest we measure it? We can imagine odor, discernibility of music leaking from adjacent earbuds, and likelihood of being whacked by inconsiderate students' backpacks as starting points. Have at it in the comments, dear reader. ®
https://www.theregister.com//2024/08/06/japan_train_crowding_measurement/
Created by Tan KW | Sep 09, 2024
Created by Tan KW | Sep 09, 2024
Created by Tan KW | Sep 09, 2024
Created by Tan KW | Sep 09, 2024