It has been 10 years since current Railway Technical Research Institute was newly established as a result of the division and privatization of the Japanese National Railways. In the last 10years, I would say that we have been groping the way we should go and now we are starting to see the emerging horizon ahead of us.
The first three years were an era of confusion and unrest. In this period, however, the contribution income from JR companies showed steady growth, and we did not necessarily have to worry about our financial future, or rather, did not even realize the serious financial circumstances surrounding us.
In the next three years, with the construction of the Yamanashi Maglev Test Line started, RTRI faced great uncertainty with its future. The growth of the contribution money from JR companies was plateauing and different opinions were crossing each other on how to cope with the difficult situation. On the other hand, gradually permeating through RTRI's employees was the recognition that nobody but ourselves would take care of us and we must earn our own living in order to survive.
Then in 1995, around the great Hanshin Earthquake, finally we realized that we must be determined to drastically change our organization and culture to be a more self sufficient institute. In July of the same year, new development division systems were launched and the Fundamental Research Division was newly established in this context.
As our new systems have had these backgrounds, last year RTRI did better than had been expected. However, what truly matters to predict RTRI's future is how RTRI will perform this year. As for the development division systems, I expect that RTRI can continue its growth with these systems if it can attain the target amount of 3.2 billion yen for the contract-based projects.
Meanwhile, It is too early at this moment to judge the validity of the Fundamental Research Division as an effective system to vitalize Fundamental research. Considering the increasing numbers of research papers and doctoral degrees, all in all, we may be heading in the right direction. How to manage fundamental research is the most essential task for RTRI and it is without doubt that RTRI's future depends upon the success of fundamental research.
Another vital task for RTRI is Maglev. To be honest, I had slight worry about its future when we took over Maglev project from the former Japanese National Railways. It took a long time and a lot of discussions for us to finally decide in 1989 to construct a Maglev test line in Yamanashi, with active commitment and cooperation by JR Central. It made me keenly realize that Maglev had finally become a national project. During the construction period, RTRI has accumulated precious experiences in working together with JR Central and the Japanese Railway Construction Public Corporation. Although how to play a leading role in such a cooperative relationship has not been an easy matter, the accumulated experiences during that period have been greatly helpful for determining basic technological direction for Maglev project.
RTRI in the future
With experiences and performance during the past ten years, where should RTRI go in the future? The most urgent task for the coming two years is to succeed in the tests on the Yamanashi Maglev Test Line. If this initial three year test program succeeds, the next step will be also highly likely to go well. Development divisions seem to have come to stay, but they will have to continue seeking new topics for technological development in order to secure steady growth. As far as our society keeps changing, we need to keep offering attractive products one after another. At RTRI, R&D in railway structure technology has been leading other fields, as can been seen in the examples of UrEDAS, IMPACT, RRR Method, and bridge maintenance methods. Next comes vehicle technology development division, which has been expanding through being tried and tested repeatedly in the process of high speed projects, and power supply technology and signalling systems follow. Other divisions have not yet completely established their businesses and are still seeking what to be sold.
Among important R&D themes for future RTRI is "information." Although it has been long since our times were called information age or communication age, RTRI has not yet completely ridden on the wave. In this age of information, the most important keys are personal computers and Internet. At RTRI, personal computers have already been widely used since the integrated OA system was introduced, although Internet is still in its budding. As RTRI has an advantage of small-scale organization, a sort of social experiments examining systems like OA or CALS with intranet and human response. RTRI has only about 600 employees, or 1,000 although even with employees of associated companies, and they are rather homogeneous population. I hope that RTRI will try a comprehensive experiment including hardware, software, humanware, and even socialware. Then we will be able to extend the experiment to local communities and business partners, and, finally, to make a cyber-society. Cyber-society experiments have been already started all over Japan, and RTRI can be also a model organization for such experiments. What I am trying to emphasize here is the importance of getting determined to venture innovative, unprecedented projects. RTRI should constantly pursue what can be a model for the next generation society and build the model including systems and management methods. Through the process of these experiments, I expect, abundant ideas will flow out.
Future Orientation
It is also critical for RTRI to deepen fundamental research. As for fundamental research, we will have to gain visible results of on-going research projects soon. The research on PCB decomposition with biotechnology is almost reaching the stage to show concrete results. However, our main task is R&D proper to railways, such as ride comfort, aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics, and others. We should steadily and persistently continue research on these topics to which no other organizations are committed. Furthermore, we wish to build worldwide network of railway researchers, taking the advantage of WCRR congresses. In addition to convening once every other year to present and discuss papers, we hope to prepare a framework in which researchers from around the world can daily communicate with each other via Internet and have professional group meetings annually or semi-annually, and gather for a general congress once every other year. Such a framework will work effectively also for China, Southeast Asian countries, and other countries which will have to construct railways in the future. At the same time, I am sure, these efforts will contribute a great deal to establishing and popularizing the reputation of RTRI as a world-class rail institute. Advancing both internal improvement and external communication is our way to go.