LY Communications

Starting with elementary, junior high, and high schools as well as special needs schools,
Fukuoka City is striving to become a place where raising a family is easy

LINE Corporation (“LINE”; Location: Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo; Representative Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer: Takeshi Idezawa) and its Fukuoka-based subsidiary, LINE Fukuoka Corporation (“LINE Fukuoka”; Location: Hakata Ward, Fukuoka; Representative Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer: Noritaka Ochiai) are pleased to announce that a new “School Closure Notifications” (休校情報等通知) feature will be offered in the Fukuoka City LINE official account as of Thursday, October 1, 2020. This feature lets people who have friended the official account receive notifications about public school closures in Fukuoka City elementary, junior high, and high schools as well as special needs schools.

Due to the effects of larger typhoons and natural disasters like widespread heavy rain in recent years, Fukuoka City is increasingly delivering information about temporary school closures, weather advisories, and club activity cancelations.¹

If single parents and parents that both work are worried about leaving their children alone when schools are closed, they need to take the day off from work and do paperwork associated with taking leave. Various responsibilities (such as preparing a lunch in place of school lunches) also arise for these parents when there is no choice but to leave their children at home, so rapid delivery of accurate information is key.

While boards of education deliver information about school closures by email and on their homepages, emails are sent to parents by schools, so if the unexpected occurs after schools are closed, information will not reach parents in a timely manner. Parents being late to check the information in these emails or overlooking them entirely have also become issues.

By introducing the School Closure Notification feature, the board of education can collectively send school closure notices directly to parents, allowing them to receive the information instantly. These announcements are delivered as push notifications, making them harder to miss.

Moving forward, we plan to expand the feature beyond school closures to include categories based on urgency and needs.

Seeking to contribute to the creation of a city that makes raising children easier, the Fukuoka City LINE official account also introduced the “Safe School Lunch Management” (あんしん給食管理) feature, which lets parents receive notifications about Fukuoka City public elementary school lunch menus that contain allergens separated by school.

¹Weather advisories and school closures due to natural disasters issued in recent years by the Board of Education

■ The Safe School Lunch Management feature offers allergen information and school lunch menus
As of May 1, 2019, 3.1% of Fukuoka City elementary school students have food allergies, and preventing allergy-related incidents in school lunches has become a pressing issue. The Safe School Lunch Management feature, which provides allergy information and detailed menus for school lunches, was introduced in the Fukuoka City LINE official account to solve issues surrounding food allergies in elementary school lunches.
https://lycomm.co.jp/ja/pr/news/2020/081811

■ The “Childcare Assistance Feature” offers information about everything from changing stations to childcare allowances
The Childcare Assistance Feature was integrated into the account to let parents search for nearby “Baby Stations” (赤ちゃんの駅) by sending their location information and get answers to their frequently asked questions (such as how to receive childcare allowance or find temporary childcare facilities) from a chatbot.
https://lycomm.co.jp/ja/pr/news/2020/033110

■ About the Fukuoka City LINE Official Account
Following the conclusion of the “Information Provision Fortification Tie-up Agreement” between LINE and Fukuoka City, LINE Fukuoka set up the Fukuoka City LINE official account on April 25, 2017.

At first, the account was a way for users to select and receive only the information they wanted by customizing the account’s information categories and residential area settings in advance. The account now has 1.7 million registered friends, and currently offers chatbots and features to send your location information.

In addition to the “Childcare Assistance Feature” that lets users instantly search for nearby “Baby Stations” (such as for breastfeeding), residents can use other features that are offered to provide services closely related to daily life. The “Evacuation Action Support” (避難行動支援) feature helps users prepare for disasters and allows them to share evacuation information with their loved ones. With the “Infrastructure Report” (道路公園等通報) feature, users can report damage to infrastructure that they find to the city. Users can also find out how to throw away garbage using the “Garbage Separation Support” (ごみ分別案内) feature, which lets them freely enter garbage types (such as batteries or pottery) into the message field.

Moving forward, LINE Fukuoka will continue to utilize LINE’s technology and know-how to solve the everyday problems that residents face, making their lives even fuller and more convenient.