What kind of dangers are lurking around Shibuya Station in Tokyo, where intense congestion occurs every time various events such as Halloween occur?
We spoke with Mr. Nobuyuki Kato, General Manager of Business Planning Headquarters of Shibuya Ward's security company "SGS", who has been involved in crowd security at the Olympic/Paralympic athletes' village and the venues of the Rugby World Cup, while walking the streets of Shibuya.
Scramble crossing in front of Shibuya station
Mr. Kato first talked about the scramble crossing in front of Shibuya Station, ``Since it is a public place, it is difficult to force pedestrians to move forward like in a theme park. In terms of security, there are some difficulties," he said.
Center street
Regarding Center Gai, he said that special attention should be paid to places where wide streets and narrow streets intersect, saying, ``If one is staying, people will not be able to come out from the other. If more and more people come, they will not be able to move to either side, just like the accident in South Korea, and as a result, it could lead to an accident."
Spanish slope
Furthermore, regarding the narrow slope leading from Inokashira Street to the fashion building, commonly known as "Spain Slope", "On the slope, there is a risk that if force is applied from above, it will fall down at once and be folded, and this slope will not go down. There is a corner after that, so it is easy to apply a large force, so you need to be especially careful."
Finally, Mr. Kato said about the accident in South Korea, "Since there was a similar big accident in Japan in the past, I enjoyed the event while being aware that it could happen at any time without thinking that the accident in South Korea was a fire on the other side of the river. As a security company, I would like to re-examine whether the current method is okay and think about the future of security."