Message from the Director-General

Aiming for a Beautiful, Safe and Vital National Land
SAKAI Toshio
Director-General, National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management

We of the National Institute for Land andInfrastructure Management (NILIM) are aiming tocreate beautiful, safe, and vital national land by
conducting surveys and research necessary for theMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport andTourism to be able to technologically, appropriately,and quickly implement its policies.
In regard to safety in particular, we are consciousthat this is the most important challenge we must faceto establish the infrastructure and prerequisite
conditions in all fields.
On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan
Earthquake taught everyone in Japan many lessons. In
light of these lessons, we are conducting research inareas where improvements are essential to enact
necessary standards and apply them to restoration
projects etc. We are also conducting research needed
to introduce hard and soft measures to prepare to
respond as effectively as possible to the imminent
giant Nankai Trough Earthquake and an earthquake
directly under Tokyo. At the same time, as thedeterioration of public capital is emerging as a social
problem, in cooperation with other concernedorganizations, we are feverishly researching methods,
technologies etc. needed to efficiently and sustainably
maintain our public capital.
1. Comprehensive inter-disciplinary initiatives
To respond appropriately to these urgent challenges,
it is necessary that instead of blindly continuing past
initiatives, we conduct comprehensive studies aiming
at faster resolution of all challenges by adopting an
overall view including surrounding conditions.
Regardingpubliccapital
deterioration
countermeasures which involve various challenges
and risks such as implementation systems or financial
problems of management bodies, it is vital that fromnow on into the future, we adopt a policy ofcomprehensively planning the most appropriate
problem resolution policies guided by awareness ofthe overall risk and closely linking organizations in all
disciplines, in addition to conducting research toclarify existing conditions, rationalize and increase theefficiency of inspection, diagnosis, and record keeping
methods and to improve repair and renewal methods
etc. in individual fields based on the characteristics ofeach field such as sewage works, rivers, roads ports
and harbors, building construction and urban affairs.
At the NILIM, specialized groups encompassing awide range of diverse disciplines related to public
capital conduct research in their respective areas ofexpertise, but we have also formed project teams toflexibly take comprehensive initiatives spanning many
disciplines. Such inter-disciplinary comprehensive
initiatives are counted on to achieve unprecedented
success by taking advantage of various networks
established both inside and outside of Japan.
2. A humble attitude toward technology
As a person who has long been involved inadministrative and technological policies concerning
public capital, I have recently reached twoconclusions.
The first concerns a humble attitude toward
technology. Generally, science and technology have
evolved with each acquisition of knowledge throughhumanity’s various experiences. Present knowledge isthe result of our unflagging efforts of the past, but it
will not continue to improve in the future; we must
adopt a humble attitude without being overconfident
in today’s science and technology, and at the sametime, based on present knowledge, we have to imagine
everything that could possibly occur in the future, oreven imagine the “unimaginable”, to continuously
devote ourselves to the task of preparing for theseevents with both hard and soft measures.
It is extremely interesting to look back at theevolution of seismic technologies of bridges forexample. The first technical standards for road bridges
in Japan were stipulated in the Home Ministry Orderof 1886, National Highway Construction Standards,
but the first which specifically considered the impactsof earthquakes were presented in the Notification,
Bridge Abutment and Bridge Pier etc. SeismicMethods issued in 1924 by the Civil Engineering
Bureau of the Home Ministry in response to damage

Message from the Director-Generalcaused by the Great Kanto Earthquake of September
1923. Later Japan experienced many disastrous
earthquakes such as the Niigata Earthquake of 1964,
Miyagi Prefecture Offshore Earthquake of 1978, andthe Hyogo-nanbu Earthquake of 1995, and after eachone, we conducted various tests to obtain new
knowledge which we applied to evolve design
methods, seismic standards and seismic technologies1).
Today’s seismic standards are based on research
conducted in response to the Hyogoken-Nanbu
Earthquake, and almost all bridges newly constructedor retrofitted in line with these standards were free offatal damage caused by earthquake motion of the later
Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake of 2004 and the Great
East Japan Earthquake of 2011. But damage caused by
the tsunami has revealed new challenges. We must
humbly and steadily continue research considering
these new challenges.

maintenance instead of an age of construction.”
Throughout their long history, the Japanese people
have devised various measures to improve theirnational land, with its harsh natural environment, inwhich we have suffered flood disasters of variouskinds every year and occasional massive earthquakes
while enjoying the blessings of its rich natural setting.
If people continue to live on this land for hundreds orfor thousands of years into the future, they will have towork hard to continuously and steadily maintain andrenew the public capital, which is resistant toearthquakes and other disasters and will reliably
perform the functions demanded by each age, andwhen they do so, it will be vital to harbor warm
feelings and dreams for the people who live on thenational land now and in the future. We must neverforget to dream of and remain constantly excited about
the future.

3. Pursuing dreams
The second is to constantly pursue our dreams.
In the spring of 2012, approximately 162km of theShintomei Expressway opened in Shizuoka Prefecture.
It is reported that this sharply cut congestion on theexisting Tomei Expressway at the same time as it
normalized the sharing of functions among the arterial
roads—the Shintomei, existing Tomei and National
Highway No. 1—and achieved an approximately 80%
level of satisfaction among users with the safety,security, and comfort of the Shintomei Expressway2).
This road which, although only partly opened, hasquickly begun to function as a major new artery ofJapan, was constructed according to new geometricstructure standards intended to create roads which aresafer and more pleasant to use than past expressways.
This structural standard is based on experimental
research that started about 30 years ago on the 6km
test course at the NILIM. As a result of various latercircumstances, it took the people of Japan anextremely long time, more than 30 years in fact, totruly benefit from our experimental research'seffectiveness and achievements. For us who weredirectly involved in the project to varying degrees,
this unexpected and unnecessary long delay wasdeeply regrettable. We had worked feverishly torealize our shared dream of building a network ofroads to serve as major arteries needed to support
Japan in the 21st century.
Later, the test course was used for a variety of tests
related to ITS, and ITS technologies, intended to let
people use roads more safely, pleasantly, and more
intelligently, will continue to evolve further as wecompete with the U.S. and Europe for leadership in
this field.
Everything conceived of and planned in the Showa
Period (1926 to 1989) has been generally completed,and some people say, “The future will be an age ofIn the future, we of the NILIM are determined to act
as groups of experts in a wide range of disciplines byapplying our overall abilities to carry out surveys andresearch needed to aim for a “beautiful, safe, and vital
national land” with humility and dreams and tocontinue to work to enable the people of Japan togenuinely feel our achievements as each appears.
[Sources]
1) Japan Road Association: Road Earthquake Disaster
Manual (Pre-quake countermeasures) 2006 Revision,
Sept. 2006
2) Shintomei (Shizuoka Prefecture) Impact
Adjustment Committee: One year after opening of theShintomei Expressway (Gotenba Junction – Mikkabi
Junction), --Traffic Conditions and Improvement
Effects of the Expressway 1 Year after opening, April
12, 2013.