April 30 and May 1, 2012
The background behind a fatal highway bus crash on April 29 is the fierce competition of bus tour businesses triggered by the 2000 deregulation.
On the early morning of April 29, a tour bus ran into a wall on an expressway in Gunma Prefecture, causing a crash and killing 7 and injuring 39. The driver of the bus said he fell asleep at the wheel.
A bus driver in Chiba Prefecture pointed out that the major cause of the fatal crash was the fact that only one bus driver was assigned on the 545 km tour from Kanazawa City (Ishikawa Pref.) to the Tokyo Disneyland in Urayasu City (Chiba Pref). “If there is only one driver for that long distance at night, I wouldn’t take that job.” he added.
The transport ministry requires a bus driver to work no more than 9 hours or drive more than 670km a day. The driver said, however, “There is a big difference between driving during daytime and nighttime. It is much more tiring to drive at night. You need to be very careful if driving more than 500km at night.”
In 2000, the Road Transportation Act was deregulated by the then ruling parties of the Liberal Democratic and Komei parties as well as the Democratic Party of Japan. Since then, companies no longer need to obtain the previously mandatory license to enter into the tour bus business.
According to the transport ministry, the number of companies running chartered bus businesses sharply increased from 2,336 in 1999 to 4,492 in 2010. Business revenue per bus in the industry decreased by 20% during the same period.
The Road Transportation Act does not apply to a bus tour organized by a travel agency, which only needs to make a contract with a chartered bus company and does not have a responsibility to secure safe transportation.
The bus tour which caused the latest accident was organized by an Osaka-based travel company, Harvest Holdings. The company has left it up to a bus company to determine if the tour needs one driver or two.
A man who runs a truck company in Saitama Prefecture said that the accident is not someone else’s affair that can be ignored. “If we do not have enough drivers, we have no choice but to have our drivers shoulder the excess workload in order to make ends meet,” he said.
On the early morning of April 29, a tour bus ran into a wall on an expressway in Gunma Prefecture, causing a crash and killing 7 and injuring 39. The driver of the bus said he fell asleep at the wheel.
A bus driver in Chiba Prefecture pointed out that the major cause of the fatal crash was the fact that only one bus driver was assigned on the 545 km tour from Kanazawa City (Ishikawa Pref.) to the Tokyo Disneyland in Urayasu City (Chiba Pref). “If there is only one driver for that long distance at night, I wouldn’t take that job.” he added.
The transport ministry requires a bus driver to work no more than 9 hours or drive more than 670km a day. The driver said, however, “There is a big difference between driving during daytime and nighttime. It is much more tiring to drive at night. You need to be very careful if driving more than 500km at night.”
In 2000, the Road Transportation Act was deregulated by the then ruling parties of the Liberal Democratic and Komei parties as well as the Democratic Party of Japan. Since then, companies no longer need to obtain the previously mandatory license to enter into the tour bus business.
According to the transport ministry, the number of companies running chartered bus businesses sharply increased from 2,336 in 1999 to 4,492 in 2010. Business revenue per bus in the industry decreased by 20% during the same period.
The Road Transportation Act does not apply to a bus tour organized by a travel agency, which only needs to make a contract with a chartered bus company and does not have a responsibility to secure safe transportation.
The bus tour which caused the latest accident was organized by an Osaka-based travel company, Harvest Holdings. The company has left it up to a bus company to determine if the tour needs one driver or two.
A man who runs a truck company in Saitama Prefecture said that the accident is not someone else’s affair that can be ignored. “If we do not have enough drivers, we have no choice but to have our drivers shoulder the excess workload in order to make ends meet,” he said.
