As a result, a small delay in one train can significantly cascade through the timetable for the rest of the day due to the tightness of the schedule.

Immediately after the crash occurred, some of the mass media pointed to the congested schedule of the Fukuchiyama Line as an indirect factor.

In fact, cumulative changes over the previous three years had reduced the leeway in the train's schedule from 71 to 28 seconds over the fifteen minutes between Takarazuka and Amagasaki stations.

Drivers for JR West face financial penalties for lateness as well as being forced into harsh and humiliating retraining programs known as nikkin kyōiku (日勤教育, "dayshift education"), which include weeding and grass-cutting duties during the day.

[2] The driver had also received a non-essential phone call from the general control station at the time that he was rounding the bend.

It has been speculated that the driver was so stressed about the inevitability of going back to nikkin kyōiku due to his prior infractions that morning, that he did not notice that the train was going too fast.

[citation needed] It is believed that a contributing factor in the accident was JR West's policy of schedule punctuality.

As a result, Masataka Ide, a JR West adviser who played a major role in enforcing the punctuality of the company's trains, announced that he would resign in June 2005.

[citation needed] On 26 December 2005, Takeshi Kakiuchi officially resigned from the presidency of JR West in a move intended to take responsibility for the accident.

Kakiuchi's successor was Masao Yamazaki, who had previously served as the railway's vice president, based in Osaka.

[citation needed] A 2008 The Daily Yomiuri article stated that survivors of the disaster still faced physical and mental health issues.

[11] On 11 January 2012, Yamazaki was found not guilty by judge Makoto Okada of the Kobe District Court, saying the accident was not sufficiently predictable to merit a finding of guilt.