During three days last November, the Smart City Expo World Congress 2024 gathered smart city organizations, innovators, and policymakers from around the world to showcase the latest solutions to address the major challenges that cities face today. Among the notable presentations was Shonan Future Verse, an initiative led by NTT East in collaboration with UTA members Keio University and Kadinche. This project, funded by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan, uses “Beyond 5G” and digital twin technologies to improve urban planning through a method known as “backcasting.”
Reimagining the Future with Backcasting
Traditional urban planning often focuses on incremental improvements based on present conditions. In contrast, the Shonan Future Verse project suggests approaching city planning through a backcasting method, starting with a vision of an ideal future city and working backward to determine the necessary policies, programs, and infrastructure to achieve that vision. By creating a “super-resolution backcasting Cyber-Physical System (CPS) platform,” Shonan Future Verse enables municipal planners and residents to express, simulate, and refine their desired urban future in a digital twin environment.
At the Smart City Expo, a detailed presentation demonstrated how the Shonan Future Verse technology allows different stakeholders, including municipalities, businesses, and residents, to co-create and shape the future of their cities. This participatory element was highlighted as a key factor in ensuring that urban transformations reflect the needs and aspirations of the people who live in them.
Field Trials
The project is being tested in Fujisawa, Samukawa, and Yokosuka, cities in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, where real-world trials are helping to refine and adjust its capabilities. One major focus has been disaster prevention, using the digital twin to simulate and predict the impact of natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. The trials include:
- Fujisawa City Trial I – Simulating pedestrian flow and traffic patterns in VR/MR city maps.
- Fujisawa City Trial II – Modeling traffic scenarios during natural disasters by combining real-world mobility data with simulated inundation maps.
A Smart City Platform for the Future
By integrating Beyond 5G networks, AI-driven analysis, and high-resolution urban simulations, Shonan Future Verse is developing an information infrastructure that supports real-time decision-making and long-term urban development. The project aims to achieve three main goals:
- Develop an intuitive digital twin interface, where users can create and share future city visions.
- Utilize backcasting to determine policies and necessary interventions to realize those visions.
- Implement real-world solutions through a continuous feedback loop, ensuring that the digital twin evolves alongside the actual city.
The presentation at the Smart City Expo World Congress 2024 in Barcelona was an opportunity to demonstrate the relevance of Shonan Future Verse. As cities work to address challenges such as climate change, urban congestion, and resilience planning, Japan’s approach to data-driven, participatory urban planning offers insights for municipalities worldwide.
The Shonan Future Verse Project is funded by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan (JPJ012368C08201).
