GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (GIT), THE PRIMARY SUCCESS FACTOR IN RESTRUCTURING GAS EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE OPERATIONS

ABSTRACT Tokyo Gas successfully restructured its gas emergency maintenance operations without degradation of safety level in August of 2005. Competition in energy markets has escalated in Japan due to deregulation. Consequently, Tokyo Gas must reduce costs while maintaining safety for 50,000 km of gas pipelines and 9.6 million customers. Gas leakage emergency work is critical for maintaining customer safety. Every year we receive 140,000 calls about gas leakages and follow up by repairing those gas facilities. Originally, we had divided areas of gas distribution into six separate areas and gave responsibility of command for this work to each of the individual areas. However, this setup had the disadvantage of preventing us from allocating field workers efficiently over the total service area. Consequently, it was decided to restructure the setup for gas leakage emergency work. The plan was to integrate the reception and command centers instead of having them handle individual areas separately. However, this setup had the disadvantage that communications between commanders and field workers become more sparse. To resolve the problem, we developed a support system. Using this system, we can allocate field workers and cars efficiently, and instruct them to help each other throughout the service area. The new system makes effective use of the GIT(Geographic Information Technology) related system that Tokyo Gas has developed and operated over many years, which is the main factor behind the success of this restructuring. This paper introduces the following examples of cases where GIT has been useful: • Monitoring up-to-date car and field worker positions by using GPS(Global Positioning System) • Geographic time series analysis of trouble spots • Sharing of the latest information between commanders and field workers • Reducing the work required for making reports by using web service