On February 21, 2026, the final judging of the “Open Data Challenge for Public Transportation 2025 – powered by Project LINKS –,” a contest organized by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and others, was held at INIAD Hall in Kita City, Tokyo. The web tool “Traffic Echo,” developed by a team led by Mr. Ryota Otake of the Airport Department, Oriental Consultants Global Co., Ltd. (OC Global), received the Judge’s Special Award.

Related link: Open Data Challenge for Public Transportation 2025 Official Results Page

Second from right: Ryota Otake

*Photo: Organizer’s website

The contest aims to solve the transportation challenges faced by both urban and rural areas and to foster open innovation through the development of applications and other solutions that leverage a wide variety of transportation open data.
Among approximately 600 developers from Japan and overseas who entered the contest, Mr. Otake, serving as his team’s product manager and full-stack engineer, developed the web tool “Traffic Echo” and advanced to the final judging as a finalist.
“Traffic Echo” is a web tool that goes beyond the conventional spatial indicator of “distance from the station” by incorporating “temporal factors,” such as the frequency of public transportation services and the time of day, and visualizes changes in transportation convenience using color.
This makes it possible to visually grasp how transportation convenience differs from area to area and to analyze the actual state of transportation services in greater detail. The tool is expected to be used for purposes such as identifying and analyzing areas with transportation gaps.

Through the development of web tools, OC Global contributes to the advancement of transportation infrastructure.