Social Shaping of Technological Trajectories of Shinkansen

: The Tokaido Shinkansen began operating in 1964 and ran at globally unprecedented speeds of more than 200 kmph. Comparison with the operating speed of aircraft necessitated further improvement of the operating speed of Shinkansen. Nevertheless, there was no improvement until 20 years. During that period, the maximum speed of test cars, the highest technically feasible speed, improved. Rather than technical factors, the following social and organizational factors impeded the improvement of the operating speed. (1) The social factor was the prioritization of environmental countermeasures to improvements in speed because of the noise pollution lawsuits and noise regulation. (2) The organizational factor was the need to secure the slack time due to frequent strikes and delays when Shinkansen was managed by Japan National Railways (JNR). However, around the time of the splitting and privatization of JNR in 1987, noise regulation was relaxed and lawsuits were settled. Furthermore, the labor movement settled down with the privatization of JNR; consequently, labor unions were dismantled. These events resolved preventive factors and led to


Trajectories of Shinkansen
Abstract: The Tokaido Shinkansen began operating in 1964 and ran at globally unprecedented speeds of more than 200 kmph. Comparison with the operating speed of aircraft necessitated further improvement of the operating speed of Shinkansen. Nevertheless, there was no improvement until 20 years. During that period, the maximum speed of test cars, the highest technically feasible speed, improved. Rather than technical factors, the following social and organizational factors impeded the improvement of the operating speed. (1) The social factor was the prioritization of environmental countermeasures to improvements in speed because of the noise pollution lawsuits and noise regulation.
(2) The organizational factor was the need to secure the slack time due to frequent strikes and delays when Shinkansen was managed by Japan National Railways (JNR). However, around the time of the splitting and privatization of JNR in 1987, noise regulation was relaxed and lawsuits were settled. Furthermore, the labor movement settled down with the privatization of JNR; consequently, labor unions were dismantled. These events resolved preventive factors and led to a) Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, h.kikuchi1012@gmail.com A version of this paper was presented at the ABAS Conference 2016 Spring (Kikuchi, 2016). ©2016 Hiroki Kikuchi. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction
The Shinkansen, or bullet train, is a world-class Japanese Upon beginning operation in 1964, the Shinkansen ran on a provisional schedule in a wait-and-see approach; the scheduled speed was quite refrained, so even the express "Hikari" service between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka stations required 4 hours. The scheduled speed significantly improved in the following year with changes in schedule; subsequently, no changes were observed in both maximum and scheduled speeds until 1985. One may think that the reason for this is the lack of technological developments. However, according to Shinkansen professionals, "increasing the speed itself was a simple matter." This can be verified by examining the transition of maximum speeds of test vehicles during the public railways era. Figure 1 provides a summary changes to these three speed indicators.
Please note the trend indicated in the circle. We can discover the lack of increases until mid-1980s in scheduled and maximum speeds despite the maximum speed of test vehicles. The changes in schedule in 1985 and 1986 slightly improved the scheduled and maximum speeds; subsequently, these speeds rose dramatically in the first half of the 1990s. Given this, the following two research questions are considered. RQ1: Why no parallel efforts were made to improve speed related to speed improvements of test cars and operation? RQ2: How were factors preventing the incorporation of technical progress into operations eliminated?
This paper responds to these research questions in order.

Factors Preventing Technical Progress
This section considers the first research question, "Why no parallel efforts were made to improve speed related to speed improvements of test cars and operation?" Primarily inhibiting factors that were uncovered in the study include 1) environmental issues and 2) labor issues.

Environmental issues
Because the Shinkansen operates at speeds exceeding 200 kmph and sprints through Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and other areas, which are dense in population, noise pollution is a serious problem. Similar to air and water pollution that became an issue in Japan in the 1970s, noise pollution was considered to be an emerging issue. Thus, regulations were set for noise pollution in 1975 based on Basic Law  (2012) for Environmental Pollution Control. During that time, noise pollution levels were set at 70 dB or less when passing through residential areas, with a goal of achieving this level by 1985. When measuring the noise of the Tokaido Shinkansen in 1973, levels varied widely by location but were generally in the range of 80 to 100 dB. Thus, the technology group within JNR focused on research and development. They aimed at achieving the above goal by the stated deadline by making improvements to environmental performance instead of focusing on speed (Ebihara, 1997).
In addition to environmental standards, there was another preventive factor related to environmental issues-the Nagoya Shinkansen Trial. This court case was brought to the Nagoya District Court on March 30, 1974, by residents alongside 7 kilometers of the Shinkansen line within the Nagoya City limits. In the court case, residents demanded compensation from JNR as well as bans on noise pollution (i.e., reductions in speed) caused by passing cars. In the first instance of the case, a ruling was handed down on September 11, 1980. This required efforts for technical development of countermeasures for the noise pollution, in addition to payments of compensation. 2 However, both sides objected to the ruling and filed appeals (Kondo, 2010).
As can be seen below, the existence of environmental standards and a noise pollution court case continually required serious efforts to solve environmental issues. In other words, these two factors caused JNR's technical development division to shift its focus from improving speed to environmental countermeasures. Thus, the development of countermeasures was proposed, such as reductions in the number of pantographs, installation of pantograph covers, and creation of smooth car surfaces (Mochiduki, 2015).

Labor-management relations 3
Next is the issue of labor-management relations. In the period when JNR operated the Shinkansen, the labor unions had power and frequently invoked the work-to-rule and strikes to create advantageous conditions during negotiations. Strikes means that workers refused to do their work in groups. The work-to-rule is almost the same as slowdown. An example of this is running trains at speeds slower than speed limits for "safety" reasons or stopping trains for safety checks due to crows or other animals on the rails.
These actions intentionally created chaos in schedules and frequent delays when JNR managed the railways. The Shinkansen was not an exception either (Masuda, 2011), as can be seen in Figure 2 below.
Of course, JNR wanted to hold to the schedule as much as 3 Descriptions in this section, particularly those without a source are based on interviews with those in JNR at the times described.  Under these circumstances, no schedule revisions were made that incorporated reductions through shorter arrival times or higher speeds for the Shinkansen. Uncertainty in the labor movement created the perceived need for schedule slack by management, which disallowed any improvements in performance as measured by speed.
With regard to labor-management issues, the existence of JNR itself was shaken because the argument about privatization and splitting of the entity began to surface around 1982. This created the need for labor union members to consider their positions and dampened further union struggles. Further, the labor union was dissolved in the privatization and split; thereafter, the labor union was newly formed within the Central Japan Railway Company, which managed the Tokaido Shinkansen. This union was much more moderate and, therefore, did not impact Shinkansen operations. In this manner, the need to pad schedules was reduced, and improvements in Shinkansen speed were introduced after privatization (from an interview with a JNR official). This differs from the view of technical determinism proposed by Thompson (1967) and Perrow (1967) with regard to organizational structures being decided prior to technical specifications. This suggests the view that in the field of social shaping of technology, organizations and other social phenomena influence technological development (Ayabe, 2006;Callon, 1986Callon, , 1987Hara, 2007;Miyao, 2013;Pinch & Bijker, 1987). Studies such as that by Ogami (2015) assumed a patent system and revealed that S-shaped curve formations are due to management determinations. As part of empirical studies in the field of the social shaping of technology, the findings of this paper also suggest that managers can dynamically