Classification of maintenance and management characteristics by municipality in Hokkaido through clustering analysis using social and bridge data

Abstract

In Hokkaido, in addition to social challenges such as population decline, aging society and financial difficulties, the aging deterioration of infrastructure has become severe. Efficient management is urgently needed with insufficient capital for maintenance, but the situations vary among municipalities with many factors to consider, making it difficult to develop uniform countermeasures. Therefore, this research aimed to establish a methodology that could propose effective maintenance and management guidelines adapted to different municipal situations by classifying and analyzing municipalities quantitatively and comprehensively incorporating diverse elements. We categorized 179 municipalities in Hokkaido using many open data which show current social conditions and infrastructure conditions. Through visualizing this result and data analysis, we clarified different current situations and challenges for each municipal group, including degrees of social difficulty, characteristics of maintenance and management systems, and impacts on surrounding areas. These results are expected to advance the sharing of challenges among municipalities that have similar situations and serve as quantitative indicators for policy formulation by national and prefectural governments.