The government is stepping up development of a system that will use location data from mobile phones to find people affected by large-scale disasters, in a bid to locate people who have gathered at places not designated as evacuation spots and swiftly help them.
The government plans to complete the system during fiscal 2019 and put it into practical use before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
The Cabinet Office launched the project in July last year in cooperation with NTT Docomo, Inc., KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Corp. Using the locations of mobile phones connected to base stations, the system is designed to track the movements of disaster victims, estimate the number of people affected in 250-square-meter or 500-square-meter grids, and display the results on a multicolored map.
The Cabinet Office will manage and share with affected local governments the data it collects, to ensure relief supplies are smoothly delivered to victims. For example, if a certain area sees a population surge, the government would regard it as a likely gathering spot for victims and consider dispatching officials there. To protect victims' privacy, individual owners of phones will not be identified.
With more foreign visitors expected to visit Japan ahead of the Tokyo Games, the government will also be able to track foreigners' movements if they carry a mobile phone from one of the three cooperating companies.
The Cabinet Office initially considered a system using the Global Positioning System in smartphones. As some people use devices that lack GPS functionality, it ultimately decided to use information from base stations.
To aid the system's development, the Cabinet Office conducted a verification experiment during a disaster drill held in Mie Prefecture last November. It also collected data on residents' movements during a disaster drill in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, on Jan. 28, which was treated as an evacuation following an earthquake directly beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area.
The Cabinet Office will analyze the data in the future and identify problems with system development.
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