press release

Fujikura Ltd. (President and CEO: Masahiko Ito, hereinafter Fujikura) and IoTBASE Inc. (Representative Director: Hiromasa Sawa, hereinafter IoTBASE) will begin a demonstration experiment in January 2020 in collaboration with Omachi City, Nagano Prefecture, aiming to create a "smart city where citizens participate in town development." The city will link a "Child Safety Map," where danger information is updated when citizens post it using their smartphones or computers, with Fujikura's IoT devices (GPS trackers) to monitor the elderly and school children from danger, to create a safe and secure town with citizen participation, and a "Business Platform Infrastructure Using Maps (hereinafter referred to as the Map System Platform)" that can be used by each unit of the local government for multiple purposes. The aim is to improve business efficiency, reduce implementation/operation costs, improve citizen services, create a safe and secure town, and promote tourism.

Omachi City and Fujikura signed an agreement on October 10, 2018 with the aim of implementing a demonstration business and verifying application technologies through the project in order to improve public services using IoT technology, and have been working closely together and actively cooperating since then. Based on this agreement, the two parties have been conducting demonstration experiments on GPS trackers, comfortable monitoring shoes that can store the trackers, monitoring of elderly people using a map system, maximizing the work efficiency of snow removal vehicles, and elderly health support business, and have confirmed the application technologies and the effects of their introduction in these projects. While the effects of the introduction have been clearly recognized, the cost of introducing the systems into each business has emerged as an issue.
Omachi City, located in the northwest of Nagano Prefecture, is a city of about 26,000 people surrounded by the 3,000m-high Northern Alps. There are many mountainous areas with first-class rivers running through the city, and dangerous places can be found along children's school routes and in their living areas. In addition, there has been an increase in crimes involving children in Japan in recent years, so the needs of citizens to ensure their safety are greater than ever before.
Meanwhile, Omachi city has published a "Children's Safety Map" on the web to provide information to citizens, but the information is only updated once a year by a contracted business that provides the results of surveys, so it is not possible to reflect the latest information, and the cost of updating the server system has been an issue.

By developing services that both parties consider necessary, such as using GPS to monitor the elderly and children, providing location information for public vehicles, and maps for child safety and security, based on the same map system, the two companies aim to build a "map system platform" that can be used for multiple operations and services.
In this demonstration experiment, both parties will build multiple operations and services that they deem necessary for this purpose, evaluate the technology, operations, costs, etc., with the aim of gradually implementing them in society from fiscal 2021.
This platform is based on IoTBASE's general-purpose software (IoTCanvas), and aims to be versatile, scalable, and low-cost.
In addition, one of the demonstration experiments, the "Children's Safety Map," will collect information from citizens in order to constantly update risk information. To this end, we will verify a system that allows for easy information provision and approval process for publishing posted information on the "Children's Safety Map." Information collected from the citizens' perspective is directly linked to citizens' lives, and we aim to develop initiatives that can be used to create safer and more secure towns, improve citizens' safety awareness, and in the future, to collect information during natural disasters, which have been increasing in recent years.

・ Implementation period: January 2020 to February 28, 2021
The following ① to ⑥ and other demonstration experiments that the participants consider necessary will be carried out in sequence.
・Scope of implementation: Omachi City, Nagano Prefecture
Hardware: Cat.M1 GPS tracker (Fujikura), monitoring shoes (Fujikura)
・Software: IoTCanvas (IoTBASE)
・Contents:
1. Citizen-participation type "Children's Safety Map"
・Citizens can upload the risk information they recognize to a URL on their smartphones, which will be provided in this demonstration experiment.
Or access it from your computer and provide photos, illustrations, and comments.
・Omachi City Hall will review the information provided and reflect it on the "Child Safety Map"
2. Providing location information for shuttle buses
・Equipping the shuttle bus with a GPS tracker and publishing the location information on the Omachi City website
・Citizens can check bus location information from their smartphones or computers
3. Optimizing snowplow operating hours and understanding operating conditions
・Snowplows are equipped with GPS trackers and can be deployed from parking lots.
Also, return time is calculated from GPS data, and the discrepancy with the actual operation data is examined.
・Local government a person in charge can check the operation status by email when the robot is dispatched and when it returns, as well as by checking the robot's location on a map.
4. Elderly Care
・Collect and analyze behavioral data to consider transportation methods for those who have surrendered their driver's licenses
- Consideration of ways to support the mobility of elderly people and those who have surrendered their driver's licenses
5. Watching over school children during school events
・GPS monitoring during school trips
・GPS monitoring during mountain learning
6. Sightseeing
・Announcement of special bus service information for the Northern Alps International Art Festival

The "map system platform," which can be used across Omachi City organization, will be verified through multiple demonstration experiments, with the aim of implementing it in society in fiscal 2021.