CSIS Discussion Paper No. 134 (University of Tokyo)

Turning towards quality: a Japanese-Hungarian comparative study of theunequal usage of geographical information technologiesÁKOS JAKOBI
Department of Regional Science, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
jakobi@caesar.elte.hu
September 2014
Abstract
General theories explain the altering role of the influencing effects of ICT-related inequalities
by diffusion models, in which differences of accessibility slowly turn to inequalities between
users in the quality of usage. This paper is focusing on this latter and newer form ofinequalities, by examining what differences appear between people in using a specific type of
qualitative information, the spatial information. The presented study has chosen Japan, an
advanced country, and Hungary, a follower country, to introduce how geographicalinformation technology is used. In the paper outcomes of a comparative survey are presented,
focusing on the Japanese and the Hungarian peoples’ relation to map-information applications
and services. According to the results it is assumed that Japan entered the “quality phase” of
ICT development earlier, but later Hungary mirrored also good numbers on qualitative
information usage. In Japan location based services and geolocated searching areunambiguously more common, which is a result of larger numbers of geo-equipped
smartphones. The usage of modern devices may have deliberated users from spatial bounds oflocation; which has already signs in Japan. On the other hand small differences between thetwo countries are better to be explained by local specifications than by ICT development
differences.
Keywords
Geographical information technologies, inequalities, GIS, ICT, Japan, Hungary, smartphone

Introduction
As an affect of the technological change many examples can be cited from location
aware smartphones to map services of the internet, which represent how peoples’ opinion on
the everyday role of geographical information could have altered. Indirectly geographicalinformation systems (GIS) slowly and invisibly got diffused in everyday life, just think about
the spreading of GIS-based web mapping, Google Maps and other Digital Earth solutions,GPS-related activities, location based services or other geographical extensions of virtual oraugmented reality in cyberspace.
Although the spread of innovations associated with geoinformation services was quite
fast and global sized, it seems that market possibilities of this sector is largely dependent on
location, not just by the reason of different business environments, but also due to diverse
attitude, intention and possibilities of people of adapting new innovations.
Present research was aiming to test the above-mentioned hypothesis by comparing
Japan, an advanced country of information technologies, and Hungary, a member state of the1

EU with different backgrounds and opportunities of information and communication
technology (ICT) development. As a co-operation between the Center for Spatial Information
Science at the University of Tokyo, the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto and the Eötvös
Loránd University in Budapest, questionnaire surveys were made to compare how Japaneseand Hungarian people are using map-information based personal applications and what istheir relation to geoinformation services.
The Japanese society represents one of the most sophisticated usage of ICT tools andone of the highest level of technological development in the World, hence it is also expectable
to offer wide range possibilities to access the information stores of the modern age. The
almost everywhere detectable presence of the information economy and society has expanded
the possibilities of accessibility in this country, which provide the chance to see the real
“working” spatial information technologies. From a European point of view it is by all means
instructive to explore an environment, where the usage of spatial information has been madepossible by the satisfaction of variant social and economic needs with the most diverse
technological solutions of the 21st century.
The Hungarian way of using information and communication technologies (and also
the usage of geoinformation technologies) supposed to be slightly different from the Japanese
one. Hungary is among those European Union member states, which understood theimportance of the Lisbon Strategy, announcing that information technology development, andthe enhancement of the information economy and society is an essential factor of the global
European competitiveness, and also important for the national development. Since Hungary is
not a significant participant of the leading technology-oriented group of countries, but
considered to be a developed country (i.e. Hungary is a member of the OECD), this country is
among the second group of the followers of new innovations. It is assumed that Hungary has
also high values in indices of using ICT, however, not as high as some advanced countries.
The growing importance of map-information technologies
Spatial processes of the diffusion of information and communication technologies
largely influenced the economy and society of the 21st century (Karlsson et al. 2010). In thelast couple of years, a new motive of ICT-based inequalities seemed to appear that could havebeen connected to the usage of geographical information, since the progression of information
technologies influenced also the diffusion of information having geographical content.
Recently, significant growth is shown by certain circles of industries and services attached to
information technology tools, which provide geoinformation – namely information made up
with spatial, geographical substance – to users in a direct or indirect way. The“geoinformation business”, therefore, gained an increasing share in information economy.
Examinations of the usage habits of information with geographical content make itpossible to describe the newest demand of the modern age society. One can define geography
as the service provider (or vendor) and the society as the customer with formulated demands,
thus in line with this approach the task is to explore production and consumption
characteristics. By analysing recent processes of the usage and access of geographicalinformation a very up-to-date topic would be possible to understand. Nothing better canillustrate the actuality and usefulness of the topic then that a couple of years ago the relevantterms and technological handholds of this question were almost unknown in professional
circles, and knowing that technology is changing rapidly the understanding of ongoingprocesses is perhaps urgent and vital. We could just think on that the number of selling of
geo-application equipped smartphones is becoming larger than that of traditional mobile
phones both in Japan and in Hungary, resulting that mobile phone manufacturers like Nokia –which had until 2014 a large assembly factory in Hungary – lose markets, or should2restructure production activities both technologically and geographically. The understandingof the guiding principles of a new technology that is significant for the future makes it
possible to forecast development paths and processes. The practical market usefulness of theresearch can be seen mainly in the recognition of international trends and in the determinationof national possibilities, since it is assumed that “geoinformation business” would be a
dynamically developing and increasingly important service.
Although geoinformation business is known already for some decades (Frank 1997) it
gained a new momentum in the last couple of years by the revaluation of GIS, webmapping,GPS, navigation, LBS and other popular applications and technologies. Since it is a rather
technology oriented issue, primarily the regions and countries have taken the chance to enter
the markets, which had apparent advantage in the production or consumption of the related
goods, and hereby had a rather adaptive and innovative society and economy. Japan could be
mentioned among these countries, however, certain regions, especially the United States waswell ahead of Japan in the segment of geoinformation business. The nowadays best-known
online mapping services like Google Maps, Bing Maps etc. or the leading GIS software
companies (e.g. ESRI, Mapinfo) and many others are all located in the USA, while Japan has
not many globally known GIS enterprises. It is typical that Japan is an adaptive country in thissense, however, it has many innovative geoinformation companies as well, which have brandnew geoinformation solutions for the market. The Japanese geoinformation business ispreferably focusing and concentrating on domestic demands, which is large enough and also
rapidly increasing and giving new chances for entrepreneurs and investors. An interesting andsuccessful example of the domestic geoinformation business is Navitime, a company, which
provides “all-in-one route search” services for mobile phone users. Since the majority ofmobile phones in Japan is equipped with positioning devices (GPS), the popularity of suchintegrated navigation-information services is quite large. This reflects that in a society, which
got accustomed to technological thinking, it is easy to disseminate a geoinformation related
innovation.
In Hungary the popularity of mobile phones is quite high. At the moment the numberof mobile phone subscriptions is higher than the total number of people living in the country.
Following Japan, also the same trends are observable in Hungary: the number of smartphones
is rapidly increasing, making it possible to disseminate smartphone-based geoinformation
applications for all. On the other hand there are measurable inequalities in the society and theeconomy in the context of geoinformation business. It is assumed that GIS andgeoinformation are still mysterious words for the ordinary people, while some have alreadydiscovered the opportunities in this field. The company Nav N Go (NNG) is a prosperous
geoinformation company, with many services and products for mobile phones and car
navigation systems, additionally this company has business connections with various
automotive companies, which reflects that geoinformation business can be successful in thiscountry as well. This is however not the typical case: Hungary is usually adapting
technologies from abroad.
Development differences of the Japanese and Hungarian information societies
The spatial information culture of Japan, namely the disclosure of data enabled withspatial information is built upon the widespread usage of information and communication
technologies. In this society the usage of ICT is specifically developed not just because of thebroad and internationally well known supply side (just think on the several brands ofelectronic products), but also due to the observable and manifested demand side of its local
population. Indeed one criterion of the “active” information society is that the society itself

3

100

Japan

Hungary

World averageJapan

Hungary

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

0
2000

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

0

20

2007

5

40

2006

10

2005

15

60

2004

20

80

2003

25

2002

30

2001

Percentage of internet users

35

2000

Subscriptions per 100 inhabitants

puts up for information, content and services, which seems to be a real demand generating
factor in Japan.
According to data of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 86% of theJapanese population, that is 109 million subscribers had mobile broadband access, with thatJapan has the second largest consumer group after the United States, which has 123 million
subscribers (39% of the population). A definite character of the Japanese ICT usage is thatJapanese population applies information services mostly through mobile phones. Interestingly
the usage of PCs, and the access to internet with desktop computers and notebooks is lessfrequent then expected, although still favourable in a global context. The annual ICT
development index of the ITU consequently takes into account more aspects when estimating
the development level of the information society (see ITU 2012). According to the rankingsfor 2011 Japan has the 8th highest index among the 155 observed countries. In the top 10,
where only European countries are taking place, the only exception is South-Korea (that is thefirst in ranking), which has an ICT profile much like Japan (with also significant mobile
broadband subscriber shares). In this ranking Hungary is at the 41st position. In case of Japanthe consideration is probably true that the high volume of using information tools, or in otherwords the regular usage of computers by wide circles of the population and especially thelarge numbers of mobile devices, just because of its volume had stimulated the economy andsociety or the supply side participants to develop abundant and adequate quality services, withsatisfactory profile and content. After all it is not surprising that internet technology makes it
easy to manage everyday matters, and widely assists shopping or entertainment activities.
The above mentioned numbers already suggest that there are measurable inequalities
between the two analysed countries. Japan seems to gone further in information society
development, while Hungary appears to play a follower role. This can be traced well with
time-series of basic ICT indicators. Figure 1. depicts two examples of the lagging of ICT
innovation diffusion in Hungary as compared to Japan, however, Hungary is also well aheadof many countries in the world, that is reflected in the higher than world average penetration
rates. Both broadband subscription data and internet user rates were always higher in Japan
than in Hungary in the years between 2000 and 2013, however, the relative gap between the
countries was continuously decreasing. The trends are following typical saturation curves,which suggest altering of ICT inequalities in time.

World average

Figure 1. Fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (left) and percentage ofindividuals using the internet (right) in Japan, Hungary and in the World (2000-2013, sourceof data: ITU)
All of that falls in line with theoretical concepts of the changing nature of ICT-related
inequalities. Researchers basically explain the altering role of the influencing effects offactors related to inequalities of information society by diffusion models (Hüsing et. al, 2001;
OECD, 2001), primarily starting from that inequalities are fundamentally determined by the4adaptation level of ICT. Social and spatial diffusion in time is characterised by a logistic
curve, which shows a time-lagged S-shape depending on the development level of theanalysed entity (social group, region, country etc). As a result of later adaptation certain
groups are becoming relatively lagged behind, which can be realised in social and spatial
inequalities. In phases of the adaptation process different types of inequalities can be
discovered. In early adaptation phase, when only few applies ICT, differences can be seen inaccessibility, in the phase of diffusion differences are between users and non-users, while in
the phase of saturation differences in quality can be emphasised (Hüsing et. al, 2001). As aresult, ICT-based inequalities can be more or less measured by the society’s adaptation level.
By looking on trends of main ICT indicators of Japan and Hungary it can definitely bedeclared that both countries are over the early adaptation period, and also – in many respects –they are almost passing or have already passed the second phase of diffusion, too.
Consequently, it is assumed that these countries are entering or have already entered the third
saturation phase, where quality plays the main role in information inequalities. Since in thisthird phase the main accessibility disparities are decreasing or dissolving and the usage
differences remain as inequality motives with quality differences, we have to take not justinfrastructural and penetration factors into consideration when drawing the picture ofinequalities. Technically – on the one hand – this phase is the most difficult to measure, since
there are only few regional datasets about the quality of ICT usage. In order to test qualitybased regional inequalities – on the other hand – the examination of spatial information usage
can be a very good choice. We think that spatial information is somewhat special in term of
quality, therefore if we experience higher volume of spatial information usage, we would
assume higher level of ICT development in a country or in a social group. Also the lower
level or the lack of usage refers to a backward situation in ICT development. In the following
we try to compare the level of spatial information usage in the two countries. We assume that
although the differences between Japan and Hungary are decreasing in terms of infrastructuraland penetration factors, the quality based inequalities are still significant. It is also assumed
that Japan entered the “quality phase” of ICT development earlier, but later Hungary mirrored
also good numbers on qualitative information usage.
Increasing usage of qualitative spatial information
The increasing usage of the qualitative spatial information can be confirmed by many
evidences. In the background we found that the development of services based on informationand communication technologies notably enlarged the range of spatial information solutions.
The Japanese “mobile society” is getting familiar with the usage of spatial information by theapplication of new smartphones and related technological achievements, thanks to different
spatial positioning equipments (e.g. GPS). Since the disclosure of location information has
become technically simple and daily, the range of services and applications based on it has
considerably been enlarged. One of the most interesting services, which applies spatial
information, is attached to the solutions of the personal or pedestrian navigation systems (seeArikawa et. al. 2007). This service is eventually a public transport based navigating and route
guiding system for mobile phones that was built upon sophisticated usage of spatial data
besides geographical positioning. The background of the system is supported by the accurate
and precise Japanese transport system, in which spatial information of schedules and networks
are available in large amounts and in an authentic form. In an imperfectly operating systemitineraries and other spatial information derived from the schedules are ultimately useless, inpredictably operating systems, on the other hand, fast growing user demand might appear.
The popularity of the service is already incontestable in the last years, which resulted
sometimes the change of habits in using space, or occasionally even the formation of partial5dependence from spatial data. In a country, which was organized in a relatively complicatedsystem of spatial orientation, spatial data collected from the ether of information are very
useful for the users, and it is often the case that users are fully entrust themselves to thisdevice. An important part of the spatial data culture, therefore, the alteration of using space
and the change of using spatial data.
Another nice example of spatial information management is connected to therefinement of the Japanese transport system as well. The research team of the Center for
Spatial Information Science of the University of Tokyo created a transport modelling system
to examine commuting and space-using habits and flow trajectories of local residents basedon data of transport schedules and traffic information (People Flow Project)(Usui et. al. 2010,
Nakamura et. al. 2010). The model is really interesting because of its spatial informationbasis. On one hand it is constructed from large amounts of published data of public transportschedules, on the other hand the project tried to involve direct and individual spatial data of
the participants. Among others one solution was to use spatial digital footprints of people. The
transport system in the Tokyo agglomeration is operated by an electronic payment system,
which records with the user’s chip-card the place and time of entry in the transport network,and also the moments of passing through transfer points in the system. Hence the electronictransport payment system collects huge amount of spatial information on the transport habitsof the population. By the combination of different spatial data the above mentioned modellingsystem became aware to create spatio-temporal data sets making it possible to analyse spatial
trajectories and the peoples’ habits of using space. The digital footprints left behind theclientele are typical examples of the information society’s newly emerging and spatiallyrelevant information. The utilization of these chances is a big task for regional scientists. It isa new tool for understanding the spatial behaviour of the society, which was already andinitially been applied in Japan.
The serving of the society with information of spatial content and the accessible
information’s spatially interwoven nature is often invisible from the user’s point of view.
Solutions of location aware computing and location based services are already widespread,regardless of whether the user knows or not the possibilities of positioning. It does not reallymatters, since the transmission of location information is often automatic; what more
important is the quality of information the customer might have access to at a certain spatial
point or in connection with a given regional object. The range of such location based services
is rather wide (e.g. information on the local neighbourhood of the user, or access possibilitiesof the nearest post office etc.), furthermore the circle of service users is considered to be alsobroad, which also reflects the relatively advanced level of using spatial data. And in order tomanage location based services a lot of place-based information or in other words spatial
information is required. The increased needs for information is partially fulfilled by modern
data-collection technologies of public or private companies, and also by the population itself,
when local people or local communities play the role of information providers. Volunteered
geographical information (VGI) systems are built up from information uploaded by the users,
and if a system could have many enough users in the background, then sooner or later analternative or supplementary version of the accurate professional systems might develop.
Compared to the spatial data sets of traditional geographical information systems the quantityof volunteered geographical information can be many times higher, which can result
significant improvement of the observed phenomenon’s spatial resolution. In Japan many
examples can be found, of those the services in relation with local weather conditions areamong the most common ones. The virtual community service of “weathernews.jp” collects
and provides in addition to the official weather information also volunteer based innovative
weather information, quasi-individual weather reports, measurements, cloud images and otherdata useful to the community organized on a regional basis. The system is used and eventually
6managed by approximately 10 million people, making it possible to operate with much more
spatial data than the majority of the usual weather services have. Obviously many question theauthenticity of data, but on the one hand the users are aware of the reliability of the publishedinformation, and on the other hand it became clear that the system can only operate for long,when disclosed information are effectively not far from truth and reality. In spatial data
culture, just like in Japanese culture, "honesty" is important and typical, so that reliability ofdata in virtual communities is noticeable among given limits.
Comparative analysis of the usage of map-information services
In the last couple of years growing number of services and applications appeared
globally, which became well known in no time for wider or narrower circles of the society.
Their usage gives, however, not the same possibilities for everyone, and is not the same
important for all. Presumably it is different by countries, social groups, or individuals. This
assumption was in the focus of the research, in which the Japanese and Hungarian
populations’ knowledge and habits of using map-information services were compared in anexperimental survey. The small sample comparative survey generally examined how GIS
influenced Japanese and the Hungarian people's relation to space, their habits of using space,
and to what extent the access to spatial information has changed their daily life. The aim of
the examination was to discover how Japanese and Hungarian people are turning towards thequalitative information, namely what do they know about and how do they use spatial
information, and what differences are there between people of the two nations in that sense.
The survey was carried out in 2011-2012 in Japan and in 2012-2013 in Hungary inseveral time-periods. We presume that there are differences between the two countries,
however, the short time-lag between the surveys of the countries may have resulted, that
Hungary had meanwhile caught up in some respects and the differences between the countries
have become smaller. Analyses were based on the evaluation of a questionnaire containing a
total of 12 professional and 7 supplementary questions. The questionnaires were filled out byboth Japanese and Hungarian respondents. The questions were completely the same for bothcountries, even though certain notions and phrases were locally better known or evenunknown, or had different meanings. The research, however, had directly this aim; namely tofind the main motives of content, usage or other differences of geoinformation services
between the countries.
The survey has a total of 640 collected questionnaires, of them, however, only 421
respondents have comparable data. The rest of data are only applicable for national analyses(therefore not presented in this study). The final dataset contains answers of 189 Japanese
respondents and 233 of Hungarian ones. All the respondents are between 18 and 39 years ofage, since our primer goal was to grab the main and most active adult group of ICT usage;
that is the young and young-middle generation (see Albert et al. 2008 for further connections
between age and ICT usage). The questionnaires were collected both paper-based and in
online form in the two countries. The survey was carried out by the assistance andparticipation of the Center for Spatial Information Science at the University of Tokyo, theDepartment of Geography at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto and the Department ofRegional Science at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.
The collected sample is geographically disperse, although, urban areas are naturally
overrepresented according to the place of residence of the respondents. In Japan, most of thedata were collected in Kanto and Kinki regions, larger number of respondents were registeredin Kyoto and Tokyo agglomerations (Figure 2). In Hungary the region of Central-Hungary
has the largest numbers including Budapest, where also data from districts with different
social characteristics were collected (Figure 3.). Both the Japanese and the Hungarian dataset
7contained answers of respondents from suburban towns, smaller cities or villages, too; with ashare of 30% in Japan and 12% in Hungary. Naturally, due to very different settlement
characteristics of the two countries, those cities are difficult to compare. The grouping israther applied for comparison of core-urban and suburban or peripheral settlements within the
country.

Figure 2. Number of Japanese respondents according to their place of residence (withdetailed map of the Kanto and Kinki regions)(N=189)

8

Figure 3. Number of Hungarian respondents according to their place of residence (withdetailed map of the Budapest agglomeration)(N=189)
At first, we aimed to determine what knowledge the respondents have on mapinformation applications and services. As per the results of this section of the questionnaire
there are similarities as well as dissimilarities between Japanese and Hungarian respondents(Figure 4). Both groups mentioned car navigation applications with the highest rate, whileaugmented reality (AR) applications happened to be the least known. Hungarian respondents
mentioned more dominantly the mobile compass applications or the knowledge of real timetraffic information services, the latter result can probably be originated from the unequal
Hungarian and Japanese interpretation of this term. The Hungarian category may coverbroader ranges of applications, while Japanese people interpret public transport and road orrail traffic information separately, since the latter ones are usually considered to be an
integrated part of the navigation services, they mark it perhaps at that category. As per the
results of the answers of the Japanese respondents significantly larger awareness was shownin connection with geolocated searching, local pollen information or various digital tracking
services. These answers suggest that location based services are unambiguously morecommon in Japan, though for example local weather information services are well known inboth countries.
The next question examined what kind of services have ever been tried or used by the
respondents (Figure 5). The results show that among Hungarian respondents many people
have used car navigation and real-time traffic information services, while the Japanese havementioned digital tracking applications, pollen information services and especially thegeolocated searching applications with significantly higher proportions, which coincides withthe results of the previously mentioned knowledge analysis. Japanese people definitely seemto be more advanced users of geolocated searching, which presumably reflects the fact thatsuch services are diffused much broader in Japan.
9

0%

10

Digital children tracking services

Augmented reality applications

90%
Augmented reality applications

Location based games

Local pollen information

Digital children tracking services

Geolocated social networking

Geolocated searching

Digital package tracking services

Mobile compass

Pedastrian navigation services

Real time traffic information

Finding own location on map

Local weather

90%

Local pollen information

Location based games

Geolocated social networking

Digital package tracking services

Geolocated searching

Mobile compass

Pedastrian navigation services

Real time traffic information

Finding own location on map

Local weather

Car navigation applications

0%

Car navigation applications

100%

Hungary
Japan

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

Figure 4. The knowledge of map-information applications and services according to theJapanese and Hungarian respondents
100%

Hungary
Japan

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

Figure 5. The share of tried or used map-information applications and services according to
the Japanese and Hungarian respondents

In connection with knowledge and usage of map-information applications and services
there are naturally several dimensions of inequalities, of them the difference between the twocountries is only one issue. The following tables reflect also gender, income or residencebased inequalities. It seems in both countries that male respondents have somewhat wider
knowledge and experiences of using spatial ICT tools; which is reflected in the results of thehigher average number of known or used map-information apps and services (Table 1). The
two countries have almost the same average numbers in that sense. It is, however, different if
we would look at the average results for core-urban and out of core suburban cities. In
Hungary respondents from suburban or peripheral areas have somewhat higher averageknowledge and usage numbers, than those living in core-urban areas. In Japan, the situation isjust the opposite. Finally, the income level categories were analysed. Although many of the
respondents did not answer the question on income or had no income at all, the results reflect
insignificant connection between self-estimated income categories and knowledge of mapinformation. We measured significant connection between income level and usage
experiences only in Hungary.

HUN
Grouping categories

GenderMale
FemaleResidence Core-urban
Suburb.periph.
IncomeUnder avg.
Avg.
Over avg.
No incomeNo answer
Total

JPN

known apps
& services

used apps& services

known apps
& services

used apps& services

7,72
6,58
7,02
8,00
7,35
6,98
6,55
7,33
7,41
7,14

4,82
3,72
4,21
4,61
3,89
4,35
4,90
4,26
4,00
4,26

7,66
6,20
7,51
6,05
7,98
7,55
8,33
6,61
6,00
7,08

4,82
3,41
4,56
3,54
5,21
4,80
4,33
3,84
3,14
4,26

Table 1. Average number of known and used map-information applications and services bymajor categories (maximum value = 13)

HUN
threehalf at
fourths
the most
at the
most
25%
40%

more
than
total
threefourths
27% 100%

more
than
total
threefourths
33% 100%

Grouping categories

onefourth at
the most

Male

7%

Female

13%

35%

37%

15%

100%

15%

40%

35%

11%

100%

Core-urban

11%

31%

37%

20%

100%

12%

26%

32%

30%

100%

Suburb.periph.

0%

25%

50%

25%

100%

18%

39%

32%

11%

100%

Under avg.

8%

30%

35%

27%

100%

10%

26%

29%

36%

100%

Avg.

11%

31%

37%

21%

100%

5%

35%

35%

25%

100%

Over avg.

20%

25%

50%

5%

100%

0%

33%

33%

33%

100%

No income

3%

36%

39%

21%

100%

18%

30%

33%

19%

100%

No answer

18%

23%

32%

27%

100%

19%

33%

33%

14%

100%

GenderResidence

Incomeonefourth at
the most

JPN
threehalf at
fourths
the most
at the
most
23%
31%

13%

Table 2. How many map-information applications and services does the respondent know
from all the possibilities? (Results are presented as percentage of group total)

11

The picture can be detailed further if we count how many map-information apps orservices an individual respondent mentioned as known or tried. According to results of Table
2, male respondents know almost three-fourths of the apps and services or more, while female
respondents have a knowledge about half or three-fourth of the mentioned examples at themost (there are naturally exceptions). In Hungary suburban or peripheral residents havesomewhat larger knowledge of spatial information tools, while in Japan people of core-urban
areas perform better.
HUN
threehalf at
fourths
the most
at themost

total

onefourth at
the mostmore
thanthreefourths

total

15%

5%

100%

38%

35%

22%

5%

100%

36%

7%

0%

100%

38%

17%

5%

100%

59%

29%

13%

0%

100%

100%

33%

36%

21%

10%

100%

100%

40%

40%

15%

5%

100%

5%

100%

67%

0%

33%

0%

100%

2%

100%

51%

34%

15%

0%

100%

9%

100%

62%

33%

5%

0%

100%

Grouping categories

onefourth at
the most

Male

32%

48%

Female

50%

41%

8%

1%

100%

57%

Core-urban

41%

44%

11%

3%

100%

40%

Suburb.periph.

36%

46%

14%

4%

100%

Under avg.

46%

38%

16%

0%

Avg.

36%

49%

11%

4%

Over avg.

25%

55%

15%

No income

42%

44%

12%

No answer

59%

27%

5%

GenderResidence

IncomeJPN
threehalf at
fourths
the most
at the
most

more
than
threefourths

Table 3. How many map-information applications and services does the respondent have
tried from all the possibilities? (Results are presented as percentage of group total)
Results of Table 3 mirror the dominance of lower categories, when the experiences ofusage were asked. The majority of respondents both in Japan and in Hungary mentioned only
one-fourth or half of the map-information applications and services as ever tried. This was the
typical for all the dimensions we examined.
The questionnaire also asked the respondents to answer how frequently a tool they use.
Respondents of both countries mentioned local weather information as the most frequently
used map-information service. Finding own location on map, geolocated searching or realtime traffic information services were also often mentioned in Japan, while real time traffic
information, finding own location on map and car navigation application was the second, thirdand fourth most frequently used tool according to Hungarian respondents.
Also an overall average of usage frequency was measured for each individual
respondent by giving a score of 1 for the least and 5 for the most frequent usage of mapinformation services. From the results two histograms were drawn, where the number of
respondents (counts) could be depicted according to the level of usage frequency (Figure 6).
By comparing the two results it can be observed that the Japanese respondents have a lower
mean (1.98) of usage frequency, and a curve with more remarkable shift to the left and withrather peaked shape (see Kurtosis and Skewness results). The curve for Hungary is somewhat
closer to normal distribution and less shifted toward the smaller values. Consequently we maystate that although the knowledge and the experience of usage were higher among theJapanese respondents, the frequency of usage seems to be somewhat smaller in our sample.
On the other hand, since the numbers are representing unweighted average of usage
frequency, we do not have detailed information on the intensity of usage, which perhaps
would reflect different results.

12

Figure 6. Histograms of the usage frequency of map-information applications and services(1=very rare usage; 5=very frequent usage) (Kurtosis: 2.566 [JPN]; 0.571 [HUN]; Skewness:
1.426 [JPN]; 1.099 [HUN]; with normal curve)
In a closed question we asked also on the activity for which any map-information
services were used by the respondents. The Japanese respondents replied travel as the mostusual activity, and also searching for sights and searching for restaurants as typical activities,
when spatial information tools were used. The Hungarians mentioned also travel the mostfrequently, while public transport and commuting as second, and searching for shops as thethird most frequent activity. Out of 8 possible choices of answers an average of 4 wasmentioned by both country’s respondents (typical was between 3 and 6) (Figure 7). In thisregard only small differences can be seen between the countries. It suggests that the range ofapplying such tools is almost equally broad in the countries, and small differences are betterto be explained by local specifications than by ICT development differences.

Figure 7. Histograms of the number of activities for which map-information applications andservices were used (Kurtosis: -0.255 [JPN]; -0.290 [HUN]; Skewness: -0.675 [JPN]; -0.394[HUN]; with normal curve)
13

The next question tried to reveal what opinion the respondents have about theimportance and application possibilities of map-information tools (Table 4). According to theresults Hungarian respondents mentioned traffic, navigation and local weather services among
the very important map-information applications, while location-based games, ARapplications, geolocated social networking applications and digital children tracking services
are considered as not important ones. Japanese respondents had roughly the same opinion
regarding the non-essential applications, while mentioned own location finding, carnavigation and other local weather applications as important ones.

Map-information based
services and applications

Not
importantat allPreferably
PreferablynotimportantimportantVeryimportantTotal

Pedastrian navigation services

HU JP HU JP HU JP HU JP
HUJP
21% 14% 26% 28% 39% 35% 14% 23% 100% 100%

Local weather

7%

Location based games

68% 48% 28% 38%

Geolocated searching

28% 10% 25% 17% 33% 46% 14% 26% 100% 100%

Real time traffic information

13%

Geolocated social networking

39% 25% 33% 48% 20% 21%

8%

6% 100% 100%

Augmented reality applications

57% 35% 27% 46% 14% 15%

2%

4% 100% 100%

Mobile compass

35% 25% 34% 36% 24% 26%

8% 13% 100% 100%

Local pollen information

48% 20% 25% 36% 20% 33%

7% 11% 100% 100%

Digital children tracking services

58% 31% 19% 29% 15% 26%

9% 13% 100% 100%

Digital package tracking services

38% 19% 24% 26% 29% 39% 10% 16% 100% 100%

Finding own location on map

20%

3% 22% 11% 32% 47% 26% 39% 100% 100%

Car navigation applications

15%

6% 11% 20% 36% 38% 37% 36% 100% 100%4% 18% 15% 43% 51% 32% 30% 100% 100%4% 10%

0%

5% 100% 100%8% 14% 24% 36% 46% 37% 22% 100% 100%

Table 4. The importance of map-information applications and services according to theJapanese and Hungarian respondents
The opinions are, however, depending also on group characteristics of respondents.
Table 5 reflects, that although similarities can be found between the answers of most popular
map-information tools, there are some differences in the ranking results according to genderor residence groupings of countries. It is interesting also to see that some apps or services are
not very important for Hungarian respondents, but very important for all Japanese groups.
This is the case e.g. for the answer “Finding own location on map”, which was among the top
3 for all Japanese groups, but among the top 3 only for males among Hungarian respondents.
HUN
GenderMale
Real time traffic information

FemaleCar navigation applications

ResidenceCore-urban
Suburban.periph.
Car navigation applications
Real time traffic information

Car navigation applications

Local weather

Real time traffic information

Car navigation applications

Finding own location on map

Real time traffic information

Local weather

Local weather

JPN
GenderMale
FemaleFinding own location on map Car navigation applications

ResidenceCore-urban
Suburban.periph.
Finding own location on map Car navigation applications

Geolocated searching

Local weather

Car navigation applications

Finding own location on map

Car navigation applications

Finding own location on map

Local weather

Pedastrian navig. services

Table 5. The three most important map-information applications and services according to theJapanese and Hungarian respondents
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The outcomes above reflect typical socio-cultural differences between the twocountries, which suggest that inequalities have a complex character including social,
behavioural and infrastructural components as well. A lot could be added to this statementwith the next part of the questionnaire, where the role of the location of map-information
usage was analysed. With the following question we asked the people to answer where andwith what device they manage to use map-information services. Most of the respondents
replied they have resort to such services from home PCs or notebooks (Table 6). In Hungary
the share of using home computers is as high as 59%, while in Japan it is “only” 40.5%. The
main difference between the two countries is observable in mobile or smart phone usage:
almost 40% of the Japanese respondents access map-information services from mobile orsmartphone devices, while in Hungary the share is only 23.5%. Compared to the applicationof home PCs and smartphones, the usage of office computers, school PCs or public internet
devices for getting map-information is less typical both for Japanese and Hungarian
respondents. In Japan the usage of map-information applications and services throughworkplace computers is exceeding 14%, while in Hungary the ratio is just over 9%.
Devices and locationof map-information usage

JPN

HUN

Home PC

40,5%

59,0%

Mobile or smartphone

39,5%

23,5%

Office PC, school PC

14,1%

9,1%

Public access to internet

2,1%

2,9%

Other

3,8%

5,4%

Total

100,0%

100,0%

Table 6. Devices and location of map-information usage according to the Japanese andHungarian respondents
Beside traditional mobile phone sales namely the sales of smartphones having
integrated services is increasing globally. The selling of these latter assets exceeded that of the
traditional mobile phones in 2010 in Japan, and somewhat later, in 2013 in Hungary. From the
aspect of spatial sciences smartphones became others than their predecessors by means ofbuilt-in geographical positioning devices and related applications. This could have eventuatedthe increasing of common interest on spatial information, too.
In ICT usage with the increased diffusion of smartphones an increasing shift would
possibly be experienced from personal computers to activities managed through mobile
devices. Whereas real technological wave have just reached Hungary, in the somewhat moreadvanced stage standing Japan the above mentioned tendency can possibly have shown up
already. The results of the examination partially justify this assumption as well.
Naturally there are differences between locations of using map-information services
according to types of activities (Table 7). Respondents from Hungary basically still use homecomputers when searching for transportation information, finding services in theneighbourhood or browsing maps, as a matter of fact with simply browsing and using theinternet. Japanese respondents perform the activities rather with mobile and smartphones, orat least avail themselves of such location-independent, spatially untied and more mobile formsof getting information more frequently. This channel of accessing spatial information is notprevailing in all cases of course, since for example accessing public (governmental) services
or online shopping are still dominantly done through home computers according to Japanese
respondents too. All in all, it can still be declared that the usage of modern devices of
information and communication technologies slowly but robustfully deliberate users fromspatial bounds of location; which has already signs in Japan.
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Activities

Home
PC

Mobile
or
smart
phone

OfficePC,schoolPC

OtherpublicaccesstoInternet

Other
offline
Total

JPN
Searching for transportation route information

35%

47%

14%

2%

3%

100%

Searching for services in the neighbourhood

33%

51%

10%

2%

4%

100%

Browsing maps

36%

38%

18%

3%

5%

100%

Accessing public services (governmental services)

45%

27%

20%

4%

5%

100%

Accessing online shopping services

63%

27%

7%

0%

3%

100%

HUN
Searching for transportation route information

52%

29%

10%

4%

6%

100%

Searching for services in the neighbourhood

56%

25%

11%

3%

6%

100%

Browsing maps

54%

25%

11%

3%

7%

100%

Accessing public services (governmental services)

64%

20%

8%

2%

6%

100%

Accessing online shopping services

81%

12%

4%

2%

1%

100%

Table 7. Devices and location of map-information usage by typical activities according to theJapanese and Hungarian respondents
Discussion
Although our research sample was not representative in all terms, some statements
could possibly be made regarding the influence of spatial information technologies on
Japanese and Hungarian peoples’ life. The increasing usage of map-information service
perhaps started to change peoples’ relation to space and also their habits of using space
especially because of the growing popularity of smartphones. In our research it was betterreflected in answers of Japanese respondents, but also Hungarian respondents assigned thegeoinformation tools as useful and important.

Figure 7. Histograms of the importance score about the usage of map-information
applications and services (Kurtosis: 2.238 [JPN]; -0.503 [HUN]; Skewness: -0.775 [JPN]; 0.062 [HUN]; with normal curve; possible maximum score = 52)

16

The level of importance was measured by importance scores for all types of mapinformation applications and services (Figure 7). The minimum score was zero, whichsignified no importance for any of the map-information apps or services. The possible
maximum score was 52 (13x4), which reflected that the respondent found all the apps andservices very important. The average importance score was 31,83 in the Japanese and 28,48 in
the Hungarian survey, meaning that people of both countries consider map-information apps
and services somewhat more important than natural (the score for natural opinion is 26). The
larger score for Japan additionally can refer to more positive experiences on the usefulness ofsuch apps and services. The graphic histograms also confirm that there is a little bit more
people in Japan, who consider spatial information tools as important or very important than in
Hungary (see counts over the importance score value of 40). It seems that the dailyexperiences of using spatial information tools are already well measurable in Japan, but only
started to prevail in Hungary recently. In general, it is also possible to strengthen theassumption that Japanese people have turned towards the qualitative spatial information a bit
earlier than the Hungarians.
It can be already seen from the above mentioned few results that spatial information
technologies and geoinformation business, as well as the usage of map-information related
services and applications have some different directions in the two countries. In general it canbe assumed that Japanese users are somewhat more related to applications, which haverelations to private usage or directly serve their own needs, while they are less recline upon
community information. In contrast, Hungarian people use more services, which provide
information not personally and not only for themselves, although naturally the other services
and applications are also among the used ones. In Japan the usage of location based services iswell advanced, thus it has the consequence that the Japanese society may serve as a good
example for the second line developed countries, like Hungary. Meanwhile Hungary has also
formed its unique character in the geoinformation-world, since this country is above-average
active in content providing in cyberspace, which can cause that Hungary would have goodresults in map-information usage statistics.
Generally speaking we could confirm the assumptions derived from the previously
mentioned models of Hüsing and Selhofer (2001), namely that instead of inequalities of ICT
infrastructure penetration new inequalities of the quality of information usage has to be
replaced. In our case the model can be consequently modified as follows: ICT-related
accessibility differences between Japan and Hungary have been changed and become
supplemented by quality-based information inequalities.
Acknowledgement
The research was supported by the János Bolyai Research Fellowship of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The author thanks for the assistance of Masatoshi Arikawa,
Shinichi Konomi, Keiji Yano, Toshikazu Seto and Katsuhiro Sasuga in data collection andJapanese translation.
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