TOKYO — Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward is trialing a virtual ward office in the metaverse, aiming to offer administrative services for people unable to visit the real-life office.
In the “metaverse ward office,” local residents can use their avatars to move around inside a virtual municipal hall, which is designed like the real one, after accessing the virtual space from the ward’s website. The ward aspires to make the service fully available to all residents, covering all of its departments by fiscal 2028.
Starting Sept. 20, some local groups of people with disabilities have been allowed to complete procedures and seek consultations at the ward’s department of welfare for the disabled through the metaverse. The initiative, which is rare nationwide according to the ward, ultimately aims to provide administrative services equally to all, including those who find it difficult to come to the ward office for a variety of reasons.
During the test phase, the virtual office is only accessible to some groups of people with disabilities as designated by the ward. Inside the virtual office are a general information lobby and a consultation room staffed with the ward’s department of welfare for the disabled. Users can exchange messages through audio and chats.
The ward has been digitizing various procedures in a bid to make its services equally available without physically visiting the office to all residents regardless of where they live and whether they have disabilities. Of the 2,697 procedures offered by the ward, 1,112 have already been digitized. Further, online consultations are available at 103 of the ward’s 139 departments offering consultation services.
The trial launch of the metaverse office is part of this policy. After applying user requests taken during the experiment, the ward aims to make the metaverse service available in all departments and to all ward residents by fiscal 2028, when the municipal government buildings are scheduled to be relocated.
Meanwhile, the ward intends to ask the national government to allow procedures that currently require physical visits for legal reasons to be completed entirely online.
Ward Mayor Takeshi Saito told a press conference, “We hope to bring about an ‘ultimately barrier-free’ system where everyone, including those with disabilities or unable to leave their bed, can receive services of the same quality through the use of the metaverse ward office.”
(Japanese original by Yusuke Kato, Tokyo Bureau)
