The Japan Digital Agency cooperates with JR East to provide free Suica to victims of the Noto Peninsula earthquake to monitor the status of material distribution in real time

The Japan Digital Agency announced on January 26 that it would cooperate with JR East to provide 18,000 electronic transportation tickets Suica free of charge to households affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake in Japan and 350 card readers to shelters in the disaster area. In the future, disaster victims will only need to hold a Suica card bound to their personal data to receive supplies at the shelter, and the authorities will be able to know the status of the shelter's supply distribution in real time.

It is difficult for the authorities to grasp the status of material distribution

Currently in the Noto Peninsula disaster area, in addition to the disaster-stricken households living in shelters, there are also some victims who choose to live at home, at the homes of relatives and friends, or in sleeping cars, and these victims also need to receive supplies.

In addition, until the reconstruction of the victims' homes is completed, the victims temporarily living in the shelter may also move to other shelters for various reasons. For example, the Ishikawa Prefecture authorities currently encourage victims in the hardest-hit areas to move to cooperative hotels in southern Ishikawa Prefecture or other prefectures and cities for secondary evacuation (secondary evacuation); past surveys have also found that the 311 Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 , Disaster-affected households with physical and mental disabilities moved to an average of 4 shelters, and some people moved to up to 9 shelters.

The entry and exit and movement of people in disaster areas will affect the administrative authorities' understanding of the distribution status of materials in various places. For this reason, the Japan Digital Agency and the Disaster Prevention Digital Transformation Public-Citizen Co-Creation Council ( Disaster Prevention DX Public-Citizen Co-Creation Council ) decided to entrust JR East to assist in providing equipment such as Suica and card readers.

The Japan Digital Agency must cooperate with JR East. The key behind this is the shortage of card readers for My Number digital chip cards, and the fact that when victims of disasters evacuate, they do not carry My Number digital chip cards with them.

Just "beep" Suica

According to the information currently released by the Japan Digital Agency, when disaster victims receive Suica at a shelter, their personal information such as name, address, date of birth, and contact information will be registered. In the future, when disaster victims go to the shelter again to seek services, they will need to enter and exit. Just "beep" Suica at any time, and the authorities can immediately grasp the number of people entering and leaving the shelter, as well as information such as age and gender composition, and predict the types of supplies needed locally.

Japanese Digital Minister Taro Kono said that the My Number digital chip card adopts the NFC Type-B communication specification, but this time it was too late to be equipped with an NFC Type-B card reader, so it cooperated with JR East. He also said that if there is another disaster in the future, he hopes to use the My Number system at the shelter, so that he can save the administrative work of registering personal information when issuing Suica.

Taro Kono also mentioned that in the past, only the ownership rate of My Number chip cards was valued, while the carrying rate was ignored. The public is urged to carry the My Number chip card with them, whether they are using Android phones equipped with the My Number chip card function or carrying the My Number chip card in their wallets. In the event of a disaster, the authorities can immediately know the location of the victims, and the public can also Find out as soon as possible whether separated loved ones are seeking refuge in other shelters. In the face of disasters that may occur at any time in the future, the Digital Agency must also prepare My Number chip card readers in various shelters in advance.

Existing disaster prevention information systems are difficult to put to use

In fact, during the Reiwa 6 Noto Peninsula earthquake, the administrative authorities encountered a major problem in understanding the status of various shelters in the disaster area.

As early as 2020, the Ishikawa Prefectural Government introduced the "Ishikawa Prefectural Comprehensive Disaster Prevention Information System" (Ishikawa Prefectural Government Disaster Prevention Information System, which was built using NTT DATA's EYE-BOUSAI ) that can integrate information from various evacuation centers. This system It came in handy when Suzu City, Ishikawa Prefecture, measured the Noto Peninsula earthquake with a maximum magnitude of 6 in May 2023. It could instantly communicate the status and information of each shelter with the central Cabinet Office's Foreign Investment Distribution System ( Material Distribution and Input). Research, etc. support システム) sharing.

Since this system has been used in the past, there is no problem with its operation in theory, but it cannot be used this time. The reason is that this strong earthquake made all roads to the outside world on the Noto Peninsula difficult and difficult to move. Many villages formed "isolated settlements" due to landslides and landslides, and roads to the outside world were blocked.

In the early stages, these isolated settlements could only rely on residents to evacuate voluntarily (voluntary evacuation), or on foot by the Self-Defense Forces, Fire Brigades, or Disaster Medical Rescue Teams (DMAT). When these support/disaster relief units arrive at the disaster area earlier than the administrative authorities, they will first use their own systems to report the status of the disaster area, resulting in inconsistent resource integration of the status of each disaster area: the data is scattered in different systems, and even this time many of them are temporary and spontaneously formed by the people. If the shelter is not the originally officially designated shelter, it will happen that the temporary shelter is not numbered or named, the various systems in the same place are clearly named differently, or the specific location and material requirements of the temporary shelter cannot be known.

Digitally integrate real-time information in disaster areas across units

The administrative authorities and search and rescue units determine in advance what materials the victims need and directly deliver the materials to the disaster area. This is called "push material assistance" (Push/プッシュ type support). In the early stages of disaster relief, when various search and rescue units need to send supplies to the local area as soon as possible, the above approach will not cause much problems. However, when the evacuation life in the disaster area enters the next stage and it is necessary to respond to the needs of various localities and carry out "Pull/Pull type support", it is necessary to accurately grasp the information of each evacuation center in order to provide what is really needed by the local area. Supplies are delivered to the people.

Therefore, starting from January 17, the Ishikawa Prefectural Government began to integrate data scattered in various units into the prefectural government system. Specifically, the data registered in the "Kintone" (Kintone) used by the Self-Defense Forces and DMAT's "Disaster Health, Medical and Welfare Activities Support System" ( Disaster Health, Medical and Welfare Activities Support System , D24H) are integrated into " Ishikawa Prefecture Comprehensive Disaster Prevention Information System" uses a newly developed visual analysis system in the process to automatically classify and delete duplicate data through manual judgment.

根據石川縣的說法，過去發生災情，自衛隊、DMAT 和地方政府都是透過紙本或是電話等傳統的類比方式和橫向聯繫資料，這次是日本全國首次完全採用數位化的方式，跨單位共享災區information.

Information about “foreign asylum seekers” becomes the last mile

In addition to the existing "Ishikawa Prefecture Comprehensive Disaster Prevention Information System", the Ishikawa Prefectural Government has also cooperated with Palantir Technologies Japan, a joint venture between Palantir Technologies and Soba Holdings, to Use Palantir's Foundry system to analyze and integrate disaster victim information. The primary evacuation information compiled by Ishikawa Prefecture and city, town and village officials is used to distribute Suica to fill in the missing 1.5 or 2-time evacuation information, as well as the information on "foreign evacuees" who do not seek refuge in the evacuation shelters, so that various types of victims in the disaster area can be constructed. status and needs.

According to official data one month after the Noto Peninsula earthquake ( 2024/2/1 ), there are currently 285 municipal-level primary shelters in Ishikawa Prefecture, with a total of 8,232 people evacuating. Three 1.5 secondary shelters at the Ishikawa Prefecture level are still open. There are 288 people, and 217 secondary shelters have admitted a total of 5,889 people.

As for "out-of-region evacuees" who have evacuated independently in places other than shelters, the Ishikawa Prefectural authorities have understood the status of 7,496 people as of January 30, 2024 , including 4,425 temporary residents through the official LINE account and the prefectural government's hotline window. 102 people are staying with relatives and friends, 102 people are sleeping in cars (parking in cars), 2,867 people are staying at home, and 102 people are living in unofficial self-operated shelters.

This article first appeared in Japan Current Affairs Translation by Ishikawa Kaori
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