1. Reasons for Amendment

 The Tramway Transportation Act has been amended to strengthen the safety management system for tramway facilities to address the recent increase in decrepit tramway facilities and frequent operational incidents. Accordingly, this Amendment to the Enforcement Rule ensures effectiveness and addresses and improves upon a number of weaknesses that have emerged from system operation in time for the enforcement of the amended Act.

2. Major Provisions

A. Specify service delays of 5 minutes or more, wire rope breakage, vehicle derailments, drive unit failures, vehicle reversing, and other faults that may affect tram operation as subcategories of operational failures (Article 2-2).

B. Strengthen safety verification by adding safety verification documents for tramway facility couplers and a written confirmation of vehicle structure to the list of required documents for permission applications (Article 3).

C. Specify and add to detailed items to be included in safety management plans, which are required when applying for a completion inspection, and prescribe grounds to allow local governments to review the appropriateness of safety management plans through specialized safety management institutions (Article 9, attached Table 4).

D. Specify that when a person responsible for safety management resigns or is dismissed, a new person shall be appointed within 30 days. Prescribe that in the absence of a person responsible for safety management, the proxy designation and proxy period shall not exceed 30 days (Article 20).

E. Prescribe that an injured person shall be a person who requires inpatient treatment for at least 24 hours. Stipulate that in the event of a serious tramway accident, an oral report shall be made immediately by phone, etc., and a tramway accident report shall be prepared and filed within 72 hours thereafter. Prescribe the accident investigation duties of the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and regulations on their delegation (Article 22).

F. Specify in detail the information status to be managed on the comprehensive information management system for tramway facilities, and prescribe that inspection information, etc. that has been registered on the system shall be deemed to have been reported to the administrative agency (Article 23-2).

G. Tighten technical staff and facility requirements for specialized safety inspection institutions to strengthen safety verification of facilities following the introduction of in-depth safety inspections (attached Table 1).

H. Allow ongoing inspections and repairs by prescribing standards on the assignment of inspectors and repairmen. Ease existing driver qualification requirements to allow completion of in-house training, and exempt two-way cableway operators from mandatory boarding of conductors if vehicles that have stopped can be accessed to rescue passengers (attached Table 2).