PRACTICING EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY MANAGEMENT BASED ON OBJECTIVE DATA FOR ROUTINE MAINTENANCE MANAGED SOLELY BY NON-TECHNICAL STAFF

Abstract

 Labor shortages in infrastructure maintenance, particularly the lack of technical staff in local governments, are a serious challenge. Amid the growing need for data-driven infrastructure maintenance, this study aimed to improve routine maintenance operations for the Civil Engineering Division Maintenance Section in Tamana City, Kumamoto Prefecture, where no technical staff are assigned. We built a data infrastructure integrating and analyzing diverse information formats—including three years of resident requests and patrol response records, plus newly acquired patrol route data—on a GIS platform. This platform visualized management realities previously reliant on staff experience, such as geographical disparities between requests and responses, and the existence of routes left unaddressed for extended periods. This study demonstrates the practice of Evidence-Based Policy Management (EBPM), facilitating the shift from traditional management methods dependent on empirical rules to strategic routine maintenance based on objective data.