The main source of employment in Kurashiki City is manufacturing for leading industrial and textile industries in Japan. However, a study by Regional Economy and Society Analysing System (RESAS) found that the coefficient specialisation rate (Japan was set as 1.0) of the number of employees in the information services business in the city is 0.13.  This demonstrates the employment level in this area, where future growth is expected, is significantly low and the City needs to put more effort into developing the ICT industry.

Takahashi River Basin Data Portal Site

Takahashi River Basin Data Portal Site “data eye” (https://takahashi-riv.dataeye.jp/) is an open data catalogue site related to seven cities and three towns, including Kurashiki City, in the Takahashi River basin. It publishes visual content of analysed regional features and enables the disclosure, sharing, discovery and utilization of data.

People-flow analysis by IoT

The system analyses images taken by the cameras installed in several spots in the Bikan Historical Quarter, a notable tourist spot of Kurashiki City. It collects coordinated information and attributes information (gender and age) to figures on the screens as data. It is designed to collect only such data but not the images themselves to avoid retaining personal information. The acquired data is published as visualized content of “data eye” called People-Flow Now in Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter. It also estimates and shows in a graph, future visitor traffic by using computing regression analysis of combined past accumulated data and weather data.

AI application

1. Travel concierge “Tabit”

Tabit is a voice-response AI application developed as a smartphone app and designed to provide local tourism and culture-related recommendations.

2. FAQ Chatbot “Coton”

This is an AI chatbot that auto-responds to queries from citizens on general government services, based on FAQ information released by Kurashiki City.

Human resource development-related

The City runs an e-learning platform, data eye Web Lesson, which allows citizens to take online lessons on data utilisation techniques, to nurture citizen data scientists. The city has also held many events to promote effective use of data and regional data and seminars to promote teleworking and entrepreneurship.

Features and innovations

The visual content published by data eye is characterised by the granularity required for community-based analysis. For example, while analysis by RESAS offered by the national government provides analysis only at the municipal level, data eye’s Takahashi River Mirai (future) Map can provide analysis at suburb or street number level or at a level called 500 meter-mesh.

The lead agency for the project is the Information Policy Section at the City of Kurashiki.

The project provided training for 46 citizen data scientists over five years, who have mastered the basics of statistics at a level capable of conducting basic practical data analysis.

Effective use of data and know-how accumulated through this project has helped generate the following data utilisation projects other than city projects.

(1) Victim support project in response to the heavy rainfall disaster in July 2018 based on effective use of data

(2) Data marketing using combined data held by private businesses and stores and public entities

(3) Training in local high schools for data utilisation to solve regional issues

When the project initially started, an issue arose regarding the large amount of man hours required for primary work such as data cleansing, which resulted in a shortage of human resources for the primary duty, advanced data analysis. To solve the issue, the city has established a work system based on tele-working, which broadened the base of human resource development and allowed jobseekers to obtain jobs and engage in data processing activities which can be performed with basic skills.

The people-flow analysis using IoT has received a favourable response from various sectors. However, the current system, which processes big data collected through IoT in real time, is costly and therefore it is hardly implemented by other entities. Therefore, the City is currently considering the implementation of a low-cost people-flow analysis system by replacing the components with lower-priced ones or replacing the system with a simplified model that focuses on data collection rather than data analysis.

This project is a comprehensive project that covers all measures on data utilisation. In particular, the project engages in the development of human resources who can effectively use community-wide data, considering human resource development in anticipation of future industrial growth.

The analysis of the statistical information based on mobile network revealed that more women visit Kurashiki City than men. Also, People-Flow Now in Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter helps understand the visitor traffic and attributes in Bikan Historical Quarter, while analysis of free-Wi-Fi access allows us to see how people travel around the area. Utilising such data will help develop measures to promote tourism and improve and maintain the beautiful landscape for city development.

For the next step of the data-driven city development, the City is considering the “Smart Park & Ride” project for the development of a safe and secure urban environment around Kurashiki Station, and mitigating traffic congestion caused by tourists. For that, the City will be forecasting and capturing real-time data of both people and vehicle traffic and congestion using AI and IoT technologies based on the people-flow analysis technology.

CLAIR | case study: Intelligent ICT Implementation Project in the Takahashi River Basin

http://www.clair.or.jp/e/bestpractice/docs/2019Kurashiki_e_full.pdf