Japan has been teaching tsunamis evacuation routes for years for years in the most Japanese way possible: with video games

The memory is fragile, especially under the panic of a tsunami alert. But the Japanese have shown that they are prepared to evacuate the coastal areas. It is no accident. Japan has been exploring innovative methods for years to train its citizens.

Context. He Magnitude earthquake 8.7 near the Kamchatka Peninsula He has put on the entire east coast of Japan, forcing almost two million people to evacuate their homes. Although the waves did not exceed the meter and a half, the sirens reminded the Japanese an uncomfortable truth: when the water approaches, every second and each decision tells.

And that is precisely the problem of drills: people do not always pay their attention. Given this challenge, several Japanese universities have been developing and perfecting a solution that unites the most vital need in case of Tsunami with one of the largest passions in the country: video games.

The 2011 memory. To understand why Japan has been trying to “gamify” the evacuations, you just have to look back, to the 2011 earthquake. That disaster, which left more than 22,000 dead and missing, revealed the critical failures in the evacuation plans.

More than 60% of the evacuees used their car, convinced that they would reach a safe place faster. The result was a predictable chaos: monumental traffic jams that caught thousands of people in flood areas.

The reality is stubborn. Although the authorities usually recommend evacuating on foot, recent surveys showed that about 50% of the Japanese would come back into the car against a Tsunami alert. This creates an incredibly dangerous scenario, where pedestrians and vehicles compete in a race desperate for survival.

It is in this context where digital drills make more sense. They can recreate the chaos of a mixed evacuation of cars and pedestrians to levels to which a physical simulation does not arrive, managing to train citizens for the real dangers they will face.

Virtual reality and unreal Engine. The Nippon Institute of Technology developed a simulator with an aseptic name: application of evacuation training against Tsunamis. Based on real evacuation techniques, it is not an action video game, but a virtual reality application based on the Unreal Engine 4 graphic engine that puts the user in real Japan locations with a high risk of Tsunami.

The simulator asks you: “What should you notice in this situation?” and the user must touch on the screen the element that considers a risk or an opportunity. It can be a traffic light, a tall building designated as a refuge, a pedestrian about to crossly cross or a car that skips a stop. To motivate users to practice daily, the app incorporates gamification elements, such as a stamps system for completing training with constancy.

Do you really work? To validate their effectiveness, the researchers conducted an experiment with 25 citizens of Nishio. First, the participants carried out a virtual evacuation in an immersive simulator, equipped with a virtual reality helmet (HTC Vive Pro Eye) for foot evacuations and a car wheel. Their behavior was measured and asked what they considered important during an evacuation.

The results, published in the magazine GeosciencesThey were revealing. After using the app, the participants were much faster and more effective when identifying immediate hazards in their surroundings, such as pedestrians or other vehicles. However, they still had difficulty detecting important but distant elements, such as a hospital or a high building that served as a refuge. Their attention focused on what they had right ahead, especially the elderly, who took longer to respond and had lower success rates.