hilly and mountainous areas without transport and food processing plants that want to concentrate on production—where a salesperson/driver of Yamato Transport Co., Ltd. goes out for collection, and by putting the merchandise for exhibit/sale directly into a collapsible container, the goods will be delivered to “Solene Shunan”.

The second effort planned is the support system for checking in and handling the shopping for elderly and handicapped people. Shopping support is provided for elderly and handicapped people who cannot get to the roadside station by making use of catalog mail order and internet supermarkets. Orders are received and merchandise is picked up/packed at “Solene Shonan”, then a saleperson/driver of Yamato Transport Co., Ltd. delivers the order to the people’s homes. It is planned that the check in support will be done at the same time, by confirming the safety of customers when making deliveries and communicating with the contact person for the city if there are any irregularities or problems.

The third effort planned is the selling of local products outside the region, publicizing and expanding the market channel of the Shunan brand, and supporting the efforts to become a sixth industry. Rather than limiting the sales of the specialty products, processed goods, and farm produce grown by elderly people to local people and tourist that come to the roadside station, plans are being made to construct a system for selling to consumers and restaurants all over the country, as well as creating a distinctive letter of transmittal (package delivery invoice) displaying the characteristics of Shunan City, in order to gain national publicity. In addition, Yamato Group will provide support for not only domestic transport but also for overseas transport, to strengthen the publicizing of the Shunan brand both within Japan and overseas.

As discussed above, logistics businesses are taking action in many ways to support and revitalize the local districts. Particularly in the Rural Areas where it is said that the decline and aging of the population will progress, such efforts to maintain and revitalize the local district is necessary. For this reason, in October 2014 MLIT held the “Council for Determining Ways of Having a Maintainable Logistics System to Support the Local District” with concerned parties, including academic experts, logistics businesses, local public agencies and non-profit organizations. The needs related to distribution of goods and other daily life support services in depopulated areas, current situation of transport, the state of new efforts being tried in different places, issues and the direction to take with solutions were considered at this council. By March 2015, the information and points discussed were organized into the “Report by the Council for Determining Ways of Having a Maintainable Logistics System to Support the Local District”. Also, based on the deliberations by this council, there are plans to start a model business to construct a maintainable logistics network in 2015.

## Column

## “Takuhai [Parckage Delivery] Mate (Sagawa Mama)” ~Work While Raising your Children!~

A new way of working is gaining attention where it is possible to set your work hours according to your convenience, with no commute necessary.

With the spread of internet shopping in recent years, the number of items to be delivered has increased markedly, but the packages themselves have become smaller and lighter, making it necessary to have more people who will handle the deliveries.

Sagawa Express, having made it their goal to increase the efficiency of deliveries in the morning hours, started recruiting delivery people in the district under the jurisdiction of the Chiba North Office (Chiba Prefecture, Hanamigawa Ward, Inage Ward and Yotsukaido City) in March 2012. In response, there were many applications from housewives who applied as, “Can only work in the morning hours” ~I can only work during the time my children are in kindergarten or school~. Based on these recruitment results, the delivery offices in Chiba Prefecture began operating with housewives as the main source of delivery personnel on a trial basis. This was received so well by not only workers but also by customers that from April 2014 this policy was launched all over the country as “Takuhai Mate”, and the goal now is to expand up to 5,000 people.

Not only can this type of work be done for “a small number of hours” and “in the vicinity of home”, it “allows for possibility of unplanned absences” that arise sudden sickness of a small child.

Furthermore, Takuhai Mate uses the employment method of “outsourcing contract to a sole proprietor”,