Number of people in Tokyo downtown areas plunges amid virus outbreak

Few people are seen in front of JR Shinjuku Station in Tokyo on Saturday. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

The number of people in six downtown areas of Tokyo, such as Shinjuku and Ginza, dropped sharply in the fourth week of February (Feb. 24 to March 1) compared with the same period last year, according to an analysis by a marketing company using location information.

However, the research by X-Locations Inc. based in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, found that the number of visitors to Shibuya slightly increased in the second week of March (March 9 to 15) from the previous week. The figure in Ginza during the same period also slightly increased, indicating that people started to become tired of exercising self-restraint.

The analysis was conducted using artificial intelligence (AI) based on anonymized mobile data from the Global Positioning System (GPS) of smartphones. The number of people who visited the six areas -- Ikebukuro, Ueno, Ginza, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi -- was analyzed.

All the areas saw their numbers fall in the second week of March compared to the previous year, but the rate of decline slowed compared to the period from February to early March.

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