JR Central station in Tokyo moves AI analysis trials for Shinkansen passenger footage to January 2026
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Attributes such as gender, age group, travel purpose and whether a passenger is an inbound tourist may be inferred from the analysis.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
TOKYO – JR Central has rescheduled trials to use artificial intelligence to analyse passenger footage from security cameras on Tokaido Shinkansen bullet trains.
The trials, originally planned for November, will now be rescheduled to January 2026, said train operator Central Japan Railway on Dec 2.
The operator added that it had decided that “further dissemination” was needed for the image analysis, which is aimed at improving services.
The analysis — outsourced to Mitsubishi Electric — will entail the use of full-body images that can include faces and extracted images of passengers’ clothing and baggage to infer attributes such as gender, age group, travel purpose and whether they are inbound tourists.
According to JR Central, filming will take place from Jan 10 to Jan 16 on the entire Tokaido Shinkansen route between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka stations.
Cameras installed in rail cars one, six and eight of the N700S train operated by the company will be used in the test. KYODO
