Shinjuku Station in Tokyo is a sprawling transportation hub served by multiple railway companies, welcoming more than 2.7 million travelers each day. It holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s busiest station.
In a section of the station operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East), trash bins are emptied manually more than ten times a day, although their numbers have been reduced in recent years for cleanliness and safety reasons.
A Pilot Project
JR East is currently testing three automated trash bins, each measuring just over one meter tall and moving at a cautious speed of 20 centimeters per second.
“We wanted to test to what extent such a device can operate automatically and safely in an environment like Shinjuku Station,” said to AFP Shinya Kawamichi, head of research at JR East.
“We want to see what difference these mobile waste bins make, and whether people are truly willing to throw their waste into them”, he added.
This pilot project, which will run through the end of November, will put the robots to the test in the station’s busy underground hall, where they are expected to shuttle waste to the service staff.
Slow-moving Machines with Bulbous Eyes
Mr. Kawamichi noted that the robots are designed to be “slow, so that people can dispose of their waste into them and they can stop at any time”.
The company also wanted to verify whether the robots could navigate through a dense crowd and whether they would be well received by users, with a view to expanding future uses of this technology.
These bulky, bulb-eyed devices have proven extremely popular with tourists, many of whom stopped to take photos of them.
“Their eyes are really cute”, said Chris Genseliein, a 30-year-old German train driver, adding that he had trouble finding bins in Japanese stations.
