By Yasuhiro Hayakawa, Chief Researcher, ICT & Finance
(The original article in Japanese was posted in May 2026)
 

Increasing Aging Infrastructure Pushes Conventional Maintenance Approaches to Their Limits

Addressing the deterioration of social infrastructure — including bridges, tunnels, water and sewage systems, dams, and ports — through maintenance, repair, and renewal has long been recognized as a critical national challenge in Japan. Across core infrastructure such as roads, water and sewage networks, rivers, and ports, physical deterioration due to aging is advancing steadily, while at the same time the shortage of qualified maintenance engineers and fiscal constraints faced by local governments and other operators are becoming increasingly severe.

A large proportion of Japan's social infrastructure was built during the period of rapid economic growth surrounding the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, approximately 60 years ago. Addressing the deterioration of this aging infrastructure has become an urgent national priority.

As of March 2023, the share of social infrastructure assets that had exceeded 50 years of service life (see table below) stood at roughly 20–30% across categories. However, by March 2030, road bridges are projected to exceed 50%, and by March 2040, four of the six categories — all except water and sewage pipelines — are expected to surpass the 50% threshold. Road bridges, where aging is most advanced, are projected to have approximately three-quarters of all structures exceeding 50 years of service life by March 2040.

Note: The 50-year benchmark is applied because the design standards of the high-growth era assumed a service life of approximately 50 years.

 

Share of Social Infrastructure Assets Exceeding 50 Years of Service Life (as of March 2023)

Category	March 2023	March 2030	March 2040
Road bridges (approx. 725,000 bridges / span ≥ 2m)	~37%	~54%	~75%
Tunnels (approx. 12,000)	~25%	~35%	~52%
River management facilities (approx. 28,000)	~22%	~42%	~65%
Water supply pipelines (approx. 740,000 km)	~9%	~21%	~41%
Sewage pipelines (approx. 490,000 km)	~7%	~16%	~34%
Port facilities	~27%	~44%	~68%

Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT)

Given this situation, it is clear that conventional labor-intensive, human-dependent maintenance approaches — based on periodic inspections conducted at uniform, fixed intervals — will no longer be adequate to meet the growing inspection and maintenance demands of existing infrastructure assets.

 

IT Solutions for Infrastructure Maintenance Are Becoming Indispensable

Against this backdrop, social infrastructure maintenance leading up to 2030 will inevitably require the development and deployment of new approaches that go beyond conventional, legacy-style maintenance methods — what might be termed "IT solutions for social infrastructure."

Specifically, by utilizing technologies such as IoT, AI, cloud computing, 5G/private 5G (local 5G), and drones, the industry will need to shift away from maintenance practices centered on manual visual inspections and hammer sounding tests (a non-destructive testing method that detects internal deterioration or defects by tapping surfaces and identifying differences in the resulting sound), and move toward automated inspection and diagnosis, as well as more efficient decision-making across the entire workflow — including repair and renewal — all within the constraints of limited personnel and budgets. The envisioned approach is one in which inspection targets are prioritized optimally, with maintenance resources directed first toward infrastructure in the most critical condition.

 

The Optimization Platform as the Core of Infrastructure IT Solutions

AI-powered inspection support solutions, for example, have begun to be piloted and implemented in some areas, but challenges remain in terms of accuracy, cost, and operational burden, and their demonstrated effectiveness over conventional visual inspection methods is still limited. Going forward, however, as the underlying technologies mature and data integration and system operations become more sophisticated, the practical effectiveness of these solutions is expected to improve steadily.

 

Outlook for IT Solution Applications in Infrastructure Maintenance

Theme	Application Overview
Optimization of inspection and diagnostic operations	Transition to CBM (Condition-Based Maintenance) and risk-based maintenance. Under current fiscal and human resource constraints, it is no longer feasible to inspect all bridges, tunnels, water/sewage systems, and port facilities at the same frequency and level of detail. A framework is needed that continuously monitors and integrates diverse data — including inspection and repair histories, infrastructure utilization patterns, weather conditions, surrounding ground conditions, and years in service — and uses AI to estimate deterioration risk and the likelihood of failures. Concretely, this means quantitatively identifying "which assets should be inspected first" and "where repair budgets should be concentrated." This is not about replacing visual inspections, but about focusing on-site patrols and detailed surveys on locations where they are truly needed, thereby optimizing the system as a whole.
Continuous monitoring	On the sensing side, while dedicated equipment is currently predominant and the range of monitored assets is limited, continuous monitoring systems will become necessary for critical facilities. In particular, for assets such as water and sewage systems, tunnels, and dams — where the value of continuous monitoring for early signs of anomalies is high — the maintenance philosophy must shift from periodic inspection-based approaches to continuous, real-time monitoring. A hybrid model, in which AI handles anomaly detection while human personnel conduct on-site verification, is the most realistic approach.
Drone and robot utilization	The use of drones and robots will expand steadily, albeit incrementally. For inspections of locations that are dangerous, at height, or in confined spaces — such as the undersides of bridges, engineered slopes, tunnel ceilings, port cranes, and dam embankments — the value of replacing manual work with drones and robots is significant, and demand for their use in these areas is substantial.
Digital twin / optimization platform	Full-scale adoption of digital twin-based infrastructure maintenance approaches will accelerate going forward. In the current situation, where asset registers for individual facilities are scattered across paper documents and PDFs, the benefits of AI are inherently limited. Building a solid data foundation is therefore the key priority. By realizing a digital twin on top of this data foundation, it becomes possible to visualize time-series changes at anomalous locations, relationships with adjacent assets, and re-deterioration trends following repairs — ultimately improving both the accuracy of maintenance decisions and overall maintenance efficiency.
Challenges and countermeasures	Asset registers and inspection formats vary widely across municipalities and operators, making data integration difficult. → Digitization and standardization of data Beyond initial investment costs, challenges exist in operational costs and workforce development (particularly for younger engineers). → Adoption of low-cost models such as SaaS, and shared-service models (frameworks in which an AI platform is shared across multiple municipalities or regional operators) Existing regulatory and institutional frameworks can limit the effectiveness of technology adoption. → Design operational workflows that can be integrated into existing inspection and maintenance practices

 

Looking ahead to 2030, IT solutions for social infrastructure leveraging AI, IoT, and related technologies will be positioned not merely as replacements for conventional inspection methods, but as mechanisms for "optimizing the prioritization of inspection, diagnosis, and repair under constraints of limited personnel and budgets." In other words, these technologies are not substitutes that eliminate the need for visual inspections; rather, they are tools that raise the overall efficiency and accuracy of maintenance operations. From this perspective, an "optimization platform" — realized through a digital twin — forms the foundation. And in ensuring the long-term sustainability of aging infrastructure management, this optimization platform is, in our view, the most effective approach available.