POINTING & CALLING by Sylvia Boomer Yang

When you come to a Shinkansen platform, you will often notice a station staff member pointing his finger and calling. Such action is called “Pointing and Calling” and taken to confirm the operating time of trains, signals, and the safety. This is a method for preventing errors and oversights by using the body, eyes, voice and ears. By pointing at the object, watching it with our eyes, calling aloud, and hearing the voice with our own ears, we can effectively avoid errors and oversights, and it is said that by doing that way, we can reduce the possibility of an error or accident to one-sixth.
“Pointing and Calling” is implemented not only by the train crew and station staff, but also by workers in the train car factory; therefore, it can be said “Foundation for the safety of the Shinkansen.”