‫ە‬Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIMData that supports urban planning and theirapplication
Toward building new urban visions
YAMASHITA Koichi,
Director of the Urban Planning Department
Keywords: Urban planning basic survey, geographical information system, geospatial data, aging society
1. Introduction
In a sense, urban planning is the work of creating a future
vision for a particular region. Thus, the conventional
approach to urban planning involves predicting the future
based on vast amounts of data, and then forming plans with
the intention of promoting or controlling urban and social
conditions that are drawn from this prediction.
So then, what kinds of data are required? Article 6 of
the City Planning Act sets forth stipulations concerning
urban planning basic surveys. The act establishes that
prefectures must conduct basic surveys for urban planningevery five years or so. These surveys must cover current
conditions and future estimations of population size,
employed workforce, urban area, land use, and traffic
volume among other items. Conducting such surveys
requires the collection of vast amounts of data. However,because such data are usually available only in paper form,
their application can be problematic.
2. Maintaining and applying geospatial data
In urban planning, it is important to consider how to link
numerical information (e.g., number of enterprises, numberof households, etc.) with spatial information (e.g.,
topography, roads, administrative boundaries, etc.). It ishere that recent advancements in the geographicalinformation system (GIS) deserve attention. A survey on
how past geospatial data are maintained revealed that lessthan 40% of prefectures and municipalities operate GIS, andof these, only approximately 50% maintain geospatial datathat are linked to urban planning1.
This situation makes promoting the maintenance of urban
data (geospatial data) using GIS an urgent issue.
Particularly important in making geospatial data applicableto various aspects of urban planning is the incorporation ofbuilding attributes and land use attributes.
Building
attributes include use, structure, number of stories, and total
floor area.
Currently, these items must be inputted
individually on the basis of onsite surveys. Land use
attributes are land use classifications. They are categorized
as public land, commercial land, residential land, industrial
land, and agricultural land among others.
3. Steps toward realization of urban simulation
Even if population, traffic volume, and other information
are maintained as geospatial data, it remains unclear how
this alone can contribute to policy. Data must be further
processed and developed to serve policy objectives. The
following presents examples of geospatial data applicationthat are taken from the various research themes being
tackled by the Urban Planning Department. The results arein themselves urban data, and can be described as“secondary data” resulting from the processing of so-called“primary data” to meet policy objectives.
(1) Simulation of fire spread in an urban area2
A simulation program developed by a General
Technology Development Project titled “Development ofAssessment and Countermeasure Technologies for. Disaster
Prevention in Town Planning” (1998 to 2002) predicts thespread of fire in buildings during a major post-earthquake
fire in an urban area (Figure 1). Fundamentally required
data are buildings’ locations, sizes, and structures as pertain
to fire resistance. In addition, the program can add datathat infer the locations and shapes of openings that areneeded to predict fire spread from general examples.
Once building data are established, the program can easily
conduct simulations that consider higher fire resistanceresulting from partial redevelopment of the relevant region
or the effect that building of roads or parks has. The
program can present the effects of urban development inboth quantitative and visual forms.

Fire’s origin

within 1 hourwithin 4-5 hours
䕔Start㻠䡚㻡᫬㛫䛷╔ⅆ䕔 Start㻝᫬㛫௨ෆ䛻╔ⅆwithin 1-2 hours
within 5-6 hours
䕔Start㻡䡚㻢᫬㛫䛷╔ⅆ䕔 Start㻝䡚㻞᫬㛫䛷╔ⅆwithin 2-3 hours
fire䕕No╔ⅆ䛫䛪䕔 Start㻞䡚㻟᫬㛫䛷╔ⅆwithin 3-4 hours
䕔 Start㻟䡚㻠᫬㛫䛷╔ⅆFigure 1: Fire spread by time of fire start in areas around thefire’s origin(2) Heat island simulation2
This simulation program was developed through aGeneral
TechnologyDevelopment
Project
titled“Development of Synthetic Evaluation Technologies forImproving Urban Thermal Environments” (2004 to 2006).
It presents temperature and wind direction and speed inexternal spaces that are influenced by the urban heat island
phenomenon in the form of a map (Figure 2). Datarequired here are building location and size as well asbuilding purpose and traffic flow, which are needed to input
exhaust heat volume.
Like the fire spread simulation, once building data areestablished, the program can calculate changes in heat islandeffect that arise from redevelopment, road construction, orother activity with relative ease. It is being used in studies
of redevelopment near Tokyo Station and construction of anurban plan-authorized road (Kanjo Route No. 2) near theShimbashi district.

‫ە‬Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM(General effect arising from planting of vegetation, use of water-retentive pavement, and application ofenergy-savingbuilding technologies in the district together with construction of an urban plan-authorized road)䠄ᆅ༊ෆ䛾⥳໬䞉ಖỈᛶ⯒⿦䞉ᘓ≀┬䜶䝛໬䛸㒔ᕷィ⏬㐨㊰ᩚഛ䛻䜘䜛⥲ྜຠᯝ䠅
TemperatureẼ ኚ໬change[ o C]

0100m

2
1.6
1.2
0.8
0.4
-0.4
-0.8
-1.2
-1.6-2

Figure 2: Temperature differences caused by execution ofheat island countermeasures (estimation of effects arisingfrom construction of an urban plan-authorized road, etc.)
4. New directions for data maintenance
The above-mentioned simulation programs are effective
in tackling individual concerns, such as fire prevention in
urban areas and urban environments. However, today thequestion of how cities should function for Japan’s aging
society is taking on increasing importance. Given this,
there is a need for comprehensive data to help in formulating
an accurate vision of how cities will look in the future andstudying necessary policies.
The Urban Planning Department is developing a programfor predicting urban structures from the standpoints ofpopulation, traffic, land use, and other factors in a project
titled “Research on Assessing the Future of Urban andOutlying Regions during a Period of Population Decline”(2008 to 2010). This program will perform simulations
predicating
population
distributioninindividualmunicipality zones (in general, neighborhood districts) bytreating various forms of data (traffic data, etc.) as variables.
As a result, a number of outputs—including costs that
correspond to urban policies—will be produced in visualform.

We are also about to start a study on methods for data
maintenance that will allow land use oriented toward morecompact urban areas as well as on methods for its evaluation.
This effort will part of a new research topic to start in
FY2011 called “Research on Technologies for Land
Suitability Evaluation for Strategic Land Use Managementin Urban Planning.” Here, we will be seeking to develop amethod for indicating latent land-use suitability as
quantitative data and, further, to conduct evaluations of thissuitability in line with policy objectives, based on various
forms of land attribute data.
5. Conclusion
Returning to the topic of urban planning basic surveys,
MLIT is proceeding with a review toward improving thesesurveys. The review is being conducted with focus onlinkage with personal information, use of geospatial
information, current conditions surrounding overseas urban
databases, and other related items. We know that greatamounts of time and labor are required to maintain data
pertaining to urban areas. Nonetheless, we believe that an
important mission of the Urban Planning Department is toclarify the process from data maintenance to data applicationin response to policy objectives through research, as thisrepresents a step forward in creating urban visions that willsatisfy the demands of the times.
References
1) “2009-nen 2-gatsu Jiten de no Chiho Kokyo Dantai noToshi Keikaku Bunya ni okeru Kukan Deta no Seibi
Jokyo”: Tomohiko Sakata and Akihiro Teraki, Reportsof the City Planning Institute of Japan, May 20092) Website of the Urban Planning Department, NILIM:
http://www.nilim.go.jp/lab/bcg/busyoukai/pr-kakubu-ce
nter.html#toshi