JR West aims to please with smiles

OSAKA--In an effort to lift its image, West Japan Railway Co. has instructed its station attendants to brighten their welcomes with the help of a "smile-checking" device.

Omron Corp.'s Smile Scan uses a camera to scan an attendant's face, then display the image and evaluate how much movement is seen in the corners of the eyes and lips.

The 300,000-yen device rates each smile out of 100 by checking it against an Omron database of images of more than a million faces.

JR West introduced the machine in late March at its Osaka and Kyobashi stations.

Mayumi Matsubara, a 30-year-old attendant at Kyobashi Station, said, "Some customers feel cross if I give them too big a smile. A 70-percent smile is sometimes appropriate."(IHT/Asahi: May 15,2009)