No.3421
IT Market for Social Infrastructure in Japan: Key Research Findings 2023
Domestic IT Market for Social Infrastructure for FY2022 Valued at 642,400 Million Yen, Up 5.4% YoY
Yano Research Institute (the President, Takashi Mizukoshi) has carried out a survey on the information technology (IT) market for social infrastructure in Japan and found out the market size, trends by segment/region, trend of bidding and IT solution business for social infrastructure, and future perspectives. Here discloses the IT market size transition and forecast for social infrastructure.
Market Overview
The research highlights the IT business in the following eight segments of social infrastructure: 1) Roads, 2) Railways, 3) Airports, 4) Ports, 5) Rivers, 6) Dams, 7) Water-related, and 8) Disaster prevention/Police, and has calculated the market size based on the prices for orders placed by the infrastructure operators.
The market declined in FY2020 and FY2021 because of postponement and discontinuation of IT projects for social infrastructure due to the influence of COVID-19 crisis throughout these years. When observing by segment, the declines were notable in railways and disaster prevention/police, as the shrinkage of both segments totaled 30,000 million yen from FY2019.
FY2022 saw a rapid upturn of the market to 642,400 million yen, up 5.4% from the previous fiscal year. This was caused by expanded IT investments to the segments of railways, airports, and water-related (waterworks, rural water system, sewage, purification plants, effluent treatment, irrigation water, etc.)
Noteworthy Topics
IT Solutions for Social Infrastructure
Current IT market for social infrastructure is overall occupied by legacy type IT.
Still, since 2010s, facility inspections, remote supervision, and conditional monitoring through digital technologies have started taking place at major companies such as expressway businesses including NEXCO Group, Metropolitan Expressway Company, and Hanshin Expressway Company and railway businesses including JR passenger businesses (East Japan/Central/West Japan Railway Companies), Tokyo Metro, private railway companies in metropolitan area. Since the latter half of 2010, applications of advanced technologies for infrastructure maintenance have been promoted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MLIT) which resulted in implementation of IoT, cloud, 5G/local 5G, LPWA, AI (image analysis, speech recognition, data analysis, etc.,) 3D, AR/VR & smart devices, sensor network, drones, or robots.
These IT solutions using advanced technologies geared to social infrastructure have been implemented since the beginning of 2020s, which is projected for the IT solutions market for social infrastructure (a part of the IT market for social infrastructure, calculation based on the prices for orders placed by the infrastructure operators) to exceed the 10-billion-yen level by FY2024, entering the pervasive phase. This owes to the social circumstances such as shortage and aging of engineers at sites and overwork restrictions, in addition to progress in IT and reduced prices for systems.
Future Outlook
The IT market for social infrastructure expects a decline by 1.7% to 631,500 million yen for FY2023, affected partly by sudden expansion in the previous fiscal year.
FY2023 has still seen legacy IT for social infrastructure occupying most of the market, with the ratio of IT solutions using digital technologies for social infrastructure remained only 1.2%. The IT solutions for social infrastructure to enter the prevalence stage are expected to be in FY2024, when the market is projected to exceed 10,000 million yen.
There is a high probability for new solutions to be generated for IT solutions geared to social infrastructure, on account of the advent of next-generation communication standards such as Wi-Fi HaLow and 6G, in addition to telecommunication networks of 5G/local 5G, low-power wide-area (LPWA) with 920MHz band and cellular low-power wide-area network (LPWAN). Furthermore, use of satellites (images, satellite radars), drones (for disaster preventions, infrastructure facility inspections, and monitoring), and robots (for inspections, support for safety operations at dangerous places) is expected to expand.
Research Outline
2.Research Object： Public offices (MLIT, METI, MIC etc.,) local governments, public institutions (AIST, PWRI, NILIM, other industrial organizations), IT solution providers/system integrators, telecommunication carriers, construction businesses, heavy electric machinery manufacturers, construction consultants, etc.
3.Research Methogology： Face-to-face interviews (including online) by expert researchers, survey by telephone, and literature research
IT Market for Social Infrastructure
The information technology (IT) market for social infrastructure in this research refers to the IT business introduced for the management of the following eight segments of social infrastructure: 1) Roads (expressway, national highway, regional highway, traffic control, etc.,) 2) Railways (JR Group, Tokyo Metro, private railways, publicly-owned railway, etc.,) 3) Airports (hub airport [class 1 airport], regional airport [class 2 airport], military-civilian airport and other airports,) 4) Ports (“Strategic International Port,” “Central International Port,” “Major Port,” “Regional Port,” and “Ports Not Designated as Port Zones [as defined in Port and Harbor Act Article 56]”,) 5) Rivers, 6) Dams, 7) Water (waterworks, rural water system, sewage, purification plants, effluent treatment, irrigation water, etc.,) and 8) Disaster prevention/police. The market size includes engineering works (electric installation, communication equipment), hardware, software, equipment/devices, system integration, consulting, network usage fees, service support, maintenance support, and dispatching of personnel, which are calculated based on the prices for orders placed by the infrastructure operators (including the government and local governments).
IT Solutions for Social Infrastructure
IT solutions for social infrastructure in this research refer to services using technologies including IoT, cloud, 5G/local 5G, LPWA, AI (image analysis, speech recognition, data analysis, etc.), 3D, AR/VR & smart devices, sensor network, drones, and robots that are provided by IT vendors. In other words, they are not traditional social infrastructure services, such as manually conducted monitoring/maintenance/repairment of electrical devices, power transformers, telecommunication/data transfer network, information processing facilities, and traffic control systems.
＜Products and Services in the Market＞
IT for social infrastructure categorized as 1) Roads, 2) Railways, 3) Airports, 4) Ports, 5) Rivers, 6) Dams, 7) Water-related, and 8) Disaster prevention/Police
Published Report
Contact Us
The copyright and all other rights pertaining to this report belong to Yano Research Institute.
Please contact our PR team when quoting the report contents for the purpose other than media coverage.
Depending on the purpose of using our report, we may ask you to present your sentences for confirmation beforehand.