Purpose of Research
Japan is aiming to realize Society 5.0, a super-smart society, and a data-driven society. On the other hand, YNU is required to establish urban science research. Urban science aims to contribute to the solution of social issues, as well as to build an educational research base by specifically promoting cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research in order to practically work on solving various issues in the city. One of the important issues for cities is the intensification of global competition between cities, and the creation of new value is needed.
In this research, aiming at innovation by realizing Society 5.0 in urban development, we will work on research focusing on urban areas with a view to improving urban competitiveness. In urban areas, area management is being promoted by “new public” in which various actors work together to solve issues, and the government has institutionalized it. Therefore the purpose of this research is to build an “information platform” that can realize evidence-based area management that sets the multidisciplinary KPIs for urban competitiveness and turns the PDCA cycle. This platform is the foundation for cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the academic field, and in the practical field is a platform for super-smart cities that aim to solve problems, create value, and innovate by collaborating with various stakeholders, and strengthen urban competitiveness.
Research content / methods
□Target area (Yokohama Minato Mirai 21 district) and outline of study
This research is conducted for “Yokohama Minatomirai 21 district”, which aims to
create the most advanced Society 5.0 city. Taking advantage of the human network
cultivated through research activities in the past activities, we have built a
consortium of industry-government-academia citizens centered on YNU and an
organization that performs area management (General incorporated association
“Yokohama Minato Mirai 21” :YMM21) in the district, and do research. One of the most
important issues to enhance urban competitiveness is to enhance people’s activities
and create liveliness by strengthening the functional linkage between buildings and
improving the quality of life of public spaces between buildings. For this purpose,
this research focuses on the flow of people in urban areas, conducts basic research
that enables its grasp, analysis, and appropriate management, and builds an information
platform that utilizes the results. By treating human flow from the perspective of KPIs
that enhance urban competitiveness, it can be applied not only to creating bustle,
but also to safety and disaster prevention, mobility, environment and energy,
marketing, innovation, and economic ripple effects.
□Outline of the research (platform composition, importance of human flow data)
The platform is composed of three layers: physical condition, human beings and
things/activities. The physical layer is a layer that represents the state of the space.
Human movement and behavior data show comprehensive evaluation results with a wide
variety of factors, and are considered valuable data resources that can be used to
analyze and clarify the factors to derive knowledge on value creation in urban areas.
Therefore, we research and develop basic technologies to enable the future of a series
of CPS (Cyber Physical System) for understanding, analyzing, modeling, and managing
human flows (referred to as the “human flow CPS cycle”) and build the human layer.
The layer of things/activities is loaded with information such as human activities
performed in the space, related uses and functions of the space, and events.
A platform that consists of these three layers will be built using a three-dimensional
GIS (Geographic Information System) that has location data, and will carry
multi-dimensional analysis related to things and things while loading and visualizing
human flow data.
□Development of human flow CPS cycle technology and platform construction method
Collect and analyze human flow data of macro and micro scales. Regarding the macro
scale, we will utilize the data from the visitor surveys for more than 20 years and
mobile space statistics to understand the actual situation and analyze the factors
of fluctuation. In addition, the requirements and dashboard functions that the platform
should have for collaborative analysis by researchers in various fields and various stakeholders will be organized. For the micro-scale, the space within the area that is important in terms of crowds, stagnation, and safe traffic is extracted and measured with a 3DLiDAR sensor to analyze the relationship between human movements and behaviors and various factors such as space setting, surrounding landscape, and weather conditions. The functions and requirements of the platform are organized and the platform is constructed so that such a series of analysis and visualization can be performed on the platform. In addition, mutual analysis of the results of the above macro scale and micro scale is performed.
□Features of this study
Analysis of human movements and behaviors is conducted jointly by architectural and urban planning researchers who have the knowledge cultivated in urban planning, and researchers in the field of information science utilizing the latest AI and VR.
First, researchers in the urban planning and urban design fields, where human movements are the most important, will play a central role in conducting human flow analysis using the platform and expanding into the fields of energy, environment, disaster prevention, mobility, and economy and management.
Aiming at social implementation that utilizes research results for economic revitalization and disaster prevention. This research center will provide a platform and research seeds of YNU to a consortium, and YMM21 will collaborate as a coordinator of stakeholder needs and vision, leading to implementation.
In order to promote this research, we will formulate and challenge research plans to obtain large external funds. While advancing basic research by obtaining grants for Kakenhi, we will prepare applications for projects envisaged by relevant government ministries such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to realize a super smart society.
□Future vision
By developing evidence-based research knowledge based on human flow data and developing area management platform research, we will implement urban science research that can cross and cooperate in various fields such as energy environment, disaster prevention, mobility, and economics / management. Through this, this research center will be developed into a center that leads research and education in urban science. In addition, this research center aims to function as a center of study that plays a central role in the industry-academia-citizen consortium for community development
in Yokohama and Kanagawa, and to expand international cooperation by making use of Yokohama’s international smart city network.