Nov 17, 2023
Haneda Innovation City celebrates grand opening as Japan’s first smart airport city
Haneda Innovation City celebrated its grand opening near Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Thursday, ahead of a special opening weekend event celebrating the facility’s central themes of social innovation and culture.
Facility operators, Haneda Future Development Co.,Ltd., describe Haneda Innovation City (HICity) as Japan’s first smart airport city and are aiming for the commercial and business complex to become a hub for innovation and new business creation.
Covering over 130,000 square-meters of floor space, the smart city brings together research and development facilities and office space as well as dining, entertainment and accommodation facilities, among others.
HICity is located on the former site of Haneda Airport in Tokyo’s Ota City, an area of innovation development being driven by the Haneda Smart City Promotion Council consisting of Ota City, Haneda Future Development, and Kajima Corporation, the largest shareholder in Haneda Future Development, among other organizations.
“My predecessor handed down to me an important objective, to carefully nurture this city as a world-class model of innovation. Today's grand opening is the real starting point toward achieving this goal,” Mayor of Ota City Akimasa Suzuki said during the opening ceremony on Thursday.
Even prior to a soft opening in 2020, HICity was already in use as a testbed for solving social issues through use of the latest technologies.
During the opening weekend event, visitors will be able to see in action self-driving buses circulating the smart city. The buses are part of a smart mobility initiative which aims to address transportation challenges driven by Japan’s aging population and a shrinking labor force.
In 2020, Haneda Future Development collaborated with a number of companies to permanently deploy self-driving buses at HICity, the first deployment of its kind in a smart city in Japan. The following year saw the first demonstrations of the buses for the public, conducted on roads between HICity and Haneda Airport Terminal 3.
To date, around 16,000 passengers have ridden on the self-driving buses at HICity, according to Boldly Inc., a developer of sustainable mobility services which is working with Haneda Future Development to develop autonomous transportation around the facility.
(Self-driving shuttle buses at Haneda Innovation City. Photo taken Nov.16, 2023.)
A small shuttle bus with a maximum speed of 20km/h is limited to the grounds of the smart city. Although a private facility, the roads navigating HICity are categorized as public so the bus requires a regular license plate. A new shuttle bus is awaiting its own license plate ahead of going into operation on the site in December.
“Each shuttle bus can see the surrounding circumstances through sensors and recognize shapes and learn based on a predetermined route. These buses will only follow a predetermined route, at a predetermined speed, according to predetermined settings,” Takayuki Taguchi, Vice President of Boldly Inc., said during a demonstration on Thursday.
During the opening weekend, visitors to HICity will also be able to see a larger self-driving bus with a maximum speed of 35 km/h which the developers are hoping to put into service as a shuttle between HICity and Haneda Airport’s international terminal.
“This bus can detect traffic signals and judge between green or red lights. If anything is on the road, like a parked car, the bus can avoid it automatically,” Taguchi said.
(Demonstration ride on a self-driving bus at Haneda Innovation City. Photo taken Nov.16, 2023.)
Haneda Future Development said it hopes to establish a continuous flow of autonomous buses between the airport and HICity that people can hop on and take to the smart city where they can spend time before or after their flights.
The self-driving buses at HICity are currently operating under a vehicular license which requires the presence of an inactive driver. The developers are aiming to have the vehicles in operation under a license category which allows them to be completely autonomous.
“In Japan the number of people working as drivers is declining and young people are not getting their licenses. This means that there are few people who can operate buses. However, elderly people cannot drive by themselves. They need public transportation so we hope that self-driving shuttle buses like this can help solve this problem,” Taguchi said.
In 2020 HICity was selected as a leading model of a smart city project promoted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, whose minister Tetsuo Saito was present at Thursday’s opening ceremony.
“I have just had the opportunity to test ride a self-driving bus that is in operation as part of this opening event,” the minister said.
“Self-driving vehicles are expected to contribute to solving social issues such as the lack of drivers in public transportation. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is working on the social implementation of self-driving vehicles with safety as the priority.”
(Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito and Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike prepare to cut the ribbon during the grand opening ceremony of Haneda Innovation City in Tokyo. Photo taken Nov.16, 2023.)
Another of the eye-catching social innovations in practice at HICity can be seen and experienced at the facility AI_Scape, a restaurant where robots take up the roles of cook and waiter.
For around 1,500 yen, diners at AI_Scape can order a simple set meal featuring a main dish of curry or bolognese-style meat sauce which is prepared and served by robots from the robotics division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Japan’s oldest robot makers.
Orders are placed via a QR code at the table and diners can see the robots get to work in preparing their meals and eventually serving them on a tray placed at the table. While meals are largely boil-in-bag fare, many of us might do well to remember our own early attempts at cooking at home.
The facility was originally designed as a test and development space for the restaurant’s earliest employee - a robot named Nyokkey developed to address labor shortages in Japan’s service industry. Nyokkey can still be seen waiting tables at AI_Scape.
(AI_Scape, a restaurant staffed by robots at Haneda Innovation City, Tokyo. Photos taken Nov.16, 2023.)
Should visitors to HICity eventually find themselves overwhelmed by the latest innovations and high-end tech, more earthly pleasures are available in the smart city, from downing craft beers at a bar terrace to soaking tired feet in onsen waters at a roof-top foot spa with views to Haneda Airport itself.
The opening weekend event at HICity runs from Friday November 17 through Sunday November 19 and will feature a number of temporary art and cultural exhibitions, food and craft stalls, and pop up events among the permanent facilities.
The grand opening of HICity comes on the back of an October during which Japan saw the arrival of over 2.5 million foreign visitors, surpassing the number of foreign visitors from the same month in 2019 and the first time the monthly figure has topped pre-pandemic levels.
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