Disaster prevention connected with IoT September 6 at 20:13

It was raining heavily. A typhoon is approaching. But still ... If the situation gets worse while you are at a loss, delays in action can be life-threatening. What should be done in order to notify danger at an early stage and lead to disaster prevention and mitigation? What is expected now is IoT technology that connects everything to the Internet. We covered the efforts to visualize data using this technology and provide disaster prevention information quickly. (Ministry of Economic Affairs, Asami Terada)

With data beyond the industry

First, we will introduce a collaboration of three companies from different industries. This is a disaster prevention system jointly developed in August by KDDI, Toyota Motor Corporation, and “Geo Applied Geology”, which provides consulting services for the ground, using IoT technology. KDDI provides smartphone location information, Toyota provides vehicle driving information, and “Applied Geology” provides information on sensors that measure water level and ground inclination. Combine this big data and display it on one screen.

On the map on the screen, you can see how many people are gathered in each area. For example, an area with a lot of people is represented in red.

In addition, traffic congestion on the road is displayed in different colors. The traffic jam is “red”, and when it ’s busy, it ’s “yellow”.

Based on information such as a water level gauge, the map also displays places where there is a risk of inundation or landslides.

By superimposing such information, it is possible to obtain information necessary in the event of a disaster such as how many people remain in the dangerous area and which road can be used for evacuation.

In addition, if you use the data on your smartphone, you can understand the number of people in the shelter and the age structure, so you know how much relief supplies you need. The three companies will use this information on a trial basis in the local government this fall to make use of this information for disaster prevention.

“The combination of data from the three companies will give us new insights,” said KDDI's Director, Sogo Harada Business IoT Planning Department.

"Visualize" initiative evacuation

On the other hand, research has started to promote early evacuation using IoT technology. Researcher Kentaro Kumagai, National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Policy, has developed an IoT sensor that measures the flow of people at the evacuation site in the event of a disaster, and is developing a system that can grasp the number of people evacuating in real time. The number of evacuated people is sent to the residents' smartphones through the local government.

The background of these attempts is the idea of ​​“proactive evacuation”. Evacuate to the front while informing the surroundings of the dangers of disasters such as tsunami, and urge evacuation to the surroundings. In the “Kamaishi Miracle”, which was noticed during the Great East Japan Earthquake, “leading evacuation” spread to people around, and many lives were saved.

Researcher Kumagai intends to use IoT technology to “visualize” the people who have actually evacuated and to encourage those who hesitate to evacuate. According to Dr. Kumagai, “In the Great East Japan Earthquake, along with other factors, 40% of people have been reported to have been evacuated by people around them. They are hesitant to evacuate using IoT technology. I would like to promote research to encourage people to evacuate. "

Regarding these efforts, Professor Shuichi Inada of the Research Innovation Center at Waseda University, who is familiar with the use of IoT data, said, “The IoT technology that can gather a lot of information at an early stage can be used for early evacuation in the event of a disaster. On the other hand, the issue is whether the receiver can move to the appropriate action based on the information, and the ability to correctly understand the information must be improved. "

Disaster prevention measures born by connecting with IoT. A new role is expected to protect our lives and lives.

Economic Department reporter Asami Terada

Joined NHK in 2011. After working for Kochi Broadcasting, he was in charge of the Ministry of Finance and the distribution industry in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Currently, he covers a wide range of fields, from consumption to disaster prevention.