EAST JAPAN Railway is to open a new technical research & development centre in December, built at a total cost of ´6·6bn. The facility is located at Omiya, 30 km north of Tokyo, on the site of a former training centre which has been moved north to Shirakawa. JR-East will continue to maintain close links with the Railway Technical Research Institute, but the company says it needs to have its own in-house R&D capability.
Integrating activities currently spread around different premises, the R&D Centre occupies a 3·4ha site, with 6400m2 of floor space in a six-storey office block and 3700m2 in a two-storey laboratory building.
Operations will be split into four branches: Frontier Service dealing with customer services and information technology; Advanced Railway System Development covering rolling stock and train control; the Safety Institute dealing with accidents and natural disaster protection; and the Technical Centre looking at ways of reducing life-cycle costs.
- JR Central is expected to open its own technical research institute in July 2002, at Komaki near Nagoya.
