b. Local Support Efforts by Logistics Businesses

With the regional structure changing due to the aging population and the decrease in population and birth rate, it is becoming necessary to respond to the needs of people left in difficult situations. In Rural Areas especially, even shopping for groceries and other daily necessities is becoming difficult, and the maintenance of transportation networks is a concern. To deal with these issues, efforts are being made towards the maintenance and revitalization of these districts through cooperation between local public organizations—especially in districts with a large number of elderly people—by things like checking in and assisting the elderly with shopping, and creating sales opportunities for farmers and producers. Through such efforts, the flow of goods through new logistics channels is expected. For example, farm produce that did not get distributed to the market in the past—such as vegetables grown by elderly people in their garden—being sold at the “Michi-no-Eki (roadside stations)” or “outside the local area”. Even in a society with a serious population decline, if these new logistics channels open up in various places across the country, it could lead to the revitalization of local districts through the flow of goods and become the source of Japan’s vitality.

■ “Solene Shunan”, the Roadside Station that Cooperates with a Package Delivery Business. ~ Shunan City, Yamaguchi Prefecture

Shunan City of Yamaguchi Prefecture has a large area of farmland in the hilly and mountainous sections that cover approximately 68% of its district. In recent years, with the progressing depopulation and aging of its citizens, this city faced many of the problems common to various areas in Japan, such as an increase in deserted arable land, loss of sales opportunities and income due to the reduced production of agricultural products, and difficulty in mobility and shopping due to the decline in transportation infrastructure.

Under these conditions, with the opening of “Solene Shunan” on May 17, 2014, a roadside station along Route 2, efforts are being made to find solutions to the district’s problems based on the concept of “All of Shunan Publicizing the Shunan Brand 24/7” so that—in addition to the “Tourism Type” function of many other roadside stations—this station also provides “Welfare Type” functions to support the local citizens’ “reason for living” by making the roadside station a place of interaction/communication.

Furthermore, on November 17 of the same year, the three parties of Shonan City, Shonan Tourism Council—the company that manages “Solene Shonan”—and Yamato Transport Co., Ltd. entered into the “Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement for the Vitalization of the Local District” with the aim to vitalize the district and improve services for citizens, and to support the local residents “reason for living” as well as publicize the Shunan brand with the government and people working as one.

Figure 2-1-92

Overall Working Scheme of the “Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement for the Vitalization of the Local District”

Source) Shunan City

The first of the “Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement for the Vitalization of the Local District” efforts is providing a place for elderly people to price and exhibit/sell—even if it is just one bag—vegetables and local agricultural product/processed goods produced on their own property which they were unable to put on the market in the past because of the small quantity. There is also a process in place for those that find it difficult to deliver their goods—such as farmers in the