Bluetooth Technology Brings
Location Services Solutions
to a Historic LocationBluetooth技術が歴史ある場所にもたらす現代のロケーションサービスソリューション

NTT East, a subsidiary of NTT, is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. Heavily involved in local communities, NTT East recently partnered with a local women’s university to promote tourism for Sendai Morning Market, an open-air market invaluable to locals that has been in operation since 1945. To support the local economy and preserve the important piece of history that the market has become, NTT East looked to Bluetooth^® technology to support a network of beacons to help them understand the flow of pedestrian traffic across campus.

Q&A With Ms. Yuuko Satou From NTT East

Why did you choose Bluetooth technology for the Sendai Morning Market revitalization project?

This project was created to promote the revitalization of the central Sendai area. Sendai Morning Market, a long-established shopping district eager to attract more young customers; Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University Faculty of Contemporary Business, which aims to provide students with a practical education in the basics of business; and NTT East, which wants to drive ICT use in the city, together held a total of three workshops to identify issues and come up with measures for improving navigability and convenience within the Morning Market and the surrounding area.

This led to the launch in October 2022 of a shopping district revitalization project aimed at attracting new customers and increasing sales at the Sendai Morning Market. We chose AIBeacon, a Bluetooth^® enabled analysis tool, to help collect and visualize accurate visitor demographic data and stay time before and after project launch. AIBeacon monitored and analyzed foot traffic trends across the entire marketplace.

What kind of issues has Bluetooth technology helped resolve?

We already knew that Sendai Morning Market was not attracting that many young people, but we had no idea exactly how many were visiting the market. We chose Bluetooth^® technology as a very effective means of understanding the real-time behavior of smartphone owners without collecting any personal information.

What is the next step for this location service solution?

We are currently focusing just on Sendai Morning Market, a single shopping district. Moving forward, we hope to identify and resolve the issues faced by other Sendai shopping districts too by applying this technology to various locations in Sendai to get a better idea of the flow of people over a wider area and identify trends in each location.

We believe that Bluetooth^®︎ technology is a very effective means of collecting attribute data and other desired information in places such as shopping malls and tourist attractions where many people gather, as seen in this project.