News Maebashi gamifies infrastructure check-ups

[thomas]

On 13 April, TEPCO subsidiary TEPCO Power Grid Inc. launched an experimental form of maintenance and checkups for Mabashi's street infrastructure using a new smartphone game developed by Singapore-based game company Digital Entertainment Asset Pte. Ltd. aims to tackle labour shortages by allowing users to inspect and send in photos of power poles, utility covers for electric lines and other things.

Players can actively contribute to the community by participating in the free smartphone game called "Boku to watashi no denchu gassen" (which translates to "Our electricity pole battle"). This innovative game utilizes a newly developed app called PicTree. Players are divided into teams and tasked with photographing electricity poles in specific areas. Points are earned based on factors such as distances between the poles, tracked using GPS data. Additionally, players can make in-game purchases for certain items. As a reward for their efforts, players receive cryptocurrencies and Amazon gift cards, which can be used for donations.

Around 15,000 poles within Maebashi have been incorporated into the game. The city aims to use the photographic data to detect deterioration, defects and other issues at an early stage. Bus tours from outside the city are also planned to take place by June 29. Expansions are being considered to cover infrastructure such as sewage and road signs in other regions.

Power utility, Singapore co. team up to gamify utility pole checkups in east Japan city - The Mainichi

MAEBASHI -- A Tokyo-area power utility on April 13 launched an experimental form of maintenance and checkups for this east Japan city's street infrast

mainichi.jp

 

[Majestic]

Very interesting. Great idea. It will be interesting to see if it will work (or how it will work).

I could see how you could use it here in the States to shoot pictures of public facilities that need fixing (bus stops, street lamps, grafitti-tagged electric transmission boxes etc.), but then you are sort of incentivizing people to trash these places just so they can then shoot pictures of them and get the gift cards. It also assumes you'd have a rapid response team to tackle these issues once people report them, and I feel like the US is very sketchy in this area.

 

[Majestic]

Or maybe gamify the reporting of illegally parked cars, whereby the people who report them can get some small portion of the fine. Kind of one step away from benign reporting of broken infrastructure, and one step closer to a society where people are spying on each other (for profit), but it might be worth trying in places where illegal parking is endemic.

 

[mdchachi]

Very interesting. Great idea. It will be interesting to see if it will work (or how it will work).

I could see how you could use it here in the States to shoot pictures of public facilities that need fixing (bus stops, street lamps, grafitti-tagged electric transmission boxes etc.), but then you are sort of incentivizing people to trash these places just so they can then shoot pictures of them and get the gift cards. It also assumes you'd have a rapid response team to tackle these issues once people report them, and I feel like the US is very sketchy in this area.

I don't think they necessarily are asking for pictures only of facilities that need fixing. I think they want recent images of all of them.

 

[Lothor]

On 13 April, TEPCO subsidiary TEPCO Power Grid Inc. launched an experimental form of maintenance and checkups for Mabashi's street infrastructure using a new smartphone game developed by Singapore-based game company Digital Entertainment Asset Pte. Ltd. aims to tackle labour shortages by allowing users to inspect and send in photos of power poles, utility covers for electric lines and other things.

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Players can actively contribute to the community by participating in the free smartphone game called "Boku to watashi no denchu gassen" (which translates to "Our electricity pole battle"). This innovative game utilizes a newly developed app called PicTree. Players are divided into teams and tasked with photographing electricity poles in specific areas. Points are earned based on factors such as distances between the poles, tracked using GPS data. Additionally, players can make in-game purchases for certain items. As a reward for their efforts, players receive cryptocurrencies and Amazon gift cards, which can be used for donations.

Power utility, Singapore co. team up to gamify utility pole checkups in east Japan city - The Mainichi

MAEBASHI -- A Tokyo-area power utility on April 13 launched an experimental form of maintenance and checkups for this east Japan city's street infrast

mainichi.jp

I suspect that the people who play the game will look nothing like the ones in the publicity! My cousin, who is into stuff like geocaching, would definitely be into this game!