News

New Wearable Device from Taisei and Toshiba Improves Gatekeeping at Construction Sites

July 18, 2017
Taisei Corporation
Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation

  • Combination of glasses-type wearable device and Toshiba's communication AI RECAIUS™ digitizes vehicle management
  • New system improves efficiency and cuts workload by 20%, compared with manual access management

TOKYO, KAWASAKI - Taisei Corporation (head office: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; president & CEO: Yoshiyuki Murata) and Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (head office: Kawasaki-shi,, Kanagawa; president & CEO: Hironobu Nishikori) have developed a digital gate management system that enhances the efficiency of vehicle entry and exit management at construction sites. The system, “T-Gate.Navi,” is based on a glasses-type wearable device loaded with the image recognition technology and speech recognition technology of Toshiba’s communication AI service, RECAIUS™. The glasses also provide the screen for viewing information.

Major construction sites, especially for large-scale construction projects, have to manage a constant flow of vehicles at multiple gates. In most cases, management is done manually: every vehicle entering the site is individually registered and checked against the day’s schedule, and often its exit is also recorded and confirmed. This is all recorded as written data that must later be transferred to a digital format. Overall, it’s a time-consuming process that can result in mistakes and in gate congestion that incurs costs and reduces efficiency.

T-Gate.Navi uses the image recognition and speech recognition technologies of Toshiba's RECAIUS? to digitize the process and quickly and accurately gather vehicle information that is recorded and stored in the system server. The system, jointly developed by the companies and tested, refined and fine-tuned with feedback from multiple Taisei sites, eliminates current problems, eases vehicle entry and exit management at construction sites, and boosts overall gate management efficiency by as much as 20%.

When a vehicle nears a site gate, a vehicle manager vocally activates the camera in the glasses-mounted device, which photographs the number plate. The image is sent to the system server, which checks the number against a list of registered vehicles, and then provides the vehicle manager with necessary information, displayed on the screen of the device. This allows the vehicle manager to direct the vehicle to a different gate or to a location on the site.

The system also displays the information on a computer at the site office, ensuring site managers are updated on traffic flows and the day’s logistics. In addition to this, the system can send an email to listed people who need to be notified of vehicles entrance and exit, and also records the vehicle information in a spreadsheet for comprehensive record keeping.

Though the results of testing differed with the number of vehicles entering and leaving sites, and the skills of the vehicle managers, on-site testing proved the effectiveness of the system and found that it reduced the workload by approximately 20% across a series of sites.

Taisei will continue to advance the effectiveness of T-Gate.Navi through continued use of the system at construction sites. It will promote productivity enhancement and work-style reform with construction information management technology that uses cutting-edge ICT.

Toshiba Digital Solutions will continue to develop and promote solutions that enhance productivity in areas including construction, making full use of its IoT technology, including the RECAIUS™ communication AI service.

Digital gate management system that combines glasses-type wearable device and communication AI
System work flow

System work flow