Kyushu Service Innovation: Turning Empty Public Buses into Cargo Carriers to Solve the Delivery Problems of Elderly People in Remote Areas

You may never have heard of the four kanji characters "genkai shuraku" (marginal settlement), but you surely know about the problems of an aging population and a declining birth rate. These issues do not appear only in Taiwan; neighboring developed Japan has long been troubled by them. This is especially true in agricultural counties and cities outside the metropolises, where vast areas, many of them surrounded by high mountains and forests, have in recent years faced the fate of village extinction one after another because of aging populations and young people moving away.

Compared with Japan, Taiwan is smaller in area, its towns and cities are closer together, and its population is relatively much denser, so the proportion of areas that become "marginal settlements" is relatively small. But in the outlying islands, the eastern region, and the remote mountain areas of central and southern Taiwan, the same problem is also being faced one after another, and its severity has even become a national security issue. As the trend grows more and more severe, remote areas are gradually facing the same fate as Japan. The reduction of classes and then the merging of schools in elementary schools can be called the outpost of settlement extinction, followed by the freezing of transportation and public services and the abolition of units. In this way, the first to bear the brunt are certainly the elderly residents living in the villages, for whom regular medical visits and daily shopping will become a major problem.

(Original article published in Business Next 2015.10.13, Manager Today 2015.10.17)