In order to make it more convenient for people with visual impairments to transfer trains and buses, a demonstration experiment of a system that plays guidance sounds when a QR code of a braille block is read with a smartphone was conducted at stations in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture.
The demonstration experiment was conducted at Tsukuba Station of the Tsukuba Express and the surrounding bus terminals, and five visually impaired students attending Tsukuba University of Technology participated.
Students got off the bus and changed to a train, and when the students scanned the QR code written on the braille block at the bus stop with their smartphones, the candidate destination was read aloud.
As the students chose the station platform as their destination and walked along the braille blocks while holding up their smartphones, QR codes were read one after another, and a voice was played providing directions to the platform.
A first-year student who participated said, "The directions were easy to understand, so I was able to move around places I didn't know much."
Hiroshi Shimanuki, manager of the Tokyo Metropolitan New City Railway, which conducted the demonstration experiment in cooperation with Tsukuba City, said, "In order to promote barrier-free access and have more people use it, we would like to verify its effectiveness and safety and consider introducing it."