From foreign taxi drivers to AI robots, Tokyo boosting multilingual services

TOKYO -- In anticipation of the people from all over the world who will be flocking to Tokyo for the 2020 Summer Olympics, multilingual services are being implemented in various sectors, including the introduction of foreign taxi drivers, AI robots at train stations and pictograms that communicate information through the use of images. The city is trying to transform itself into a place where a diverse range of people who don't understand Japanese will find it easy to navigate.

"It'll be busy during the 2020 Games period. I'm researching the venues for the Olympic and Paralympic events," said Lipson Alexander, a 35-year-old Canadian taxi driver at Hinomaru Kotsu Co., in fluent Japanese.

Alexander arrived in Japan as an assistant language teacher (ALT) in 2006. For 12 years, he taught English at public schools in Shizuoka Prefecture, but his interest in the tourism industry grew. After obtaining his permanent residency in Japan, he decided to change professions. It's almost been a year since he joined the taxi company Hinomaru Kotsu, based in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward. Nowadays, he picks up foreign passengers almost every day. English conversation with his passengers turns lively when he's asked about what sights to see and Japanese culture. "It's an advantage I have, knowing what foreigners will be interested in (about Japan)," he explained.

Hinomaru Kotsu began full-fledged efforts to recruit foreign drivers in 2017. So far it has hired 40 people from 20 countries, including from Europe and the Middle East. The company says that sometimes it receives calls from hotels asking for the dispatch of taxi drivers who understand English.

Kazumi Otsu, head of the global recruitment section at Hinomaru Kotsu, says the company is intending to increase the number of its foreign drivers to 100 by the 2020 Games. A Japan Tourism Agency survey conducted in fiscal 2018 showed that the most common problem that inbound tourists had was "the inability to communicate with staff at facilities and other places."

It's no easy task, however, to increase the number of employees who are multilingual. And that's why railway companies are beginning to make use of information and communication technologies.

At Shimokitazawa Station on the Keio Inokashira train line, there is a small robot about 30 centimeters in height. Ismail Sirdah, 67, who was visiting Japan from Australia with his family, asked the robot in English how he could get to Shibuya. He was impressed when a screen showed the route he was supposed to take, as well as the fare. Sirdah's helper was Shimokitazawa Rei, a robot guide that Keio Corp. has been testing since March. With the use of AI, it offers routes and information about facilities near relevant stations. It initially only responded to Japanese inquiries, but since June, has been adapted to respond to English, Chinese and Korean as well.

But it seems to have its limitations. When a 25-year-old American, Rachel Pagador, asked for directions to a cafe close to the station, the robot was unable to respond. Satoru Inose, an assistant to the head of the business development section at Keio Corp. said, "We'll decide whether to use the robot during the 2020 Games depending on how useful it is."

East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) will begin testing 10 types of AI robots at eight stations in the capital and elsewhere from August. Considering past cases in which AI robots were unable to handle too many languages or too specific a question, JR East is poised to input Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean as the robots' default languages, and collaborate with private restaurant reservation sites to examine their usability.

In 2014, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government together with the national government and various railway companies launched a panel to deliberate how to deal with the uptick in foreign language-speaking visitors, and has since been working to make English signage at station exits uniform. It is also in the process of building an app that will show subtitles of 2020 Games announcements in eight languages.

A representative for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government expressed its intention to take all possible measures, saying, "We'd like to identify and tackle all the issues that come up before the games, and make improvements."

(Japanese original by Jun Kaneko and Keigetsu Hirai, City News Department)