CityConnect — Development Story | AMELA Project Portfolio

CLIENT

About the client

Midori City Hall, driving government DX × citizen-facing digital services.

Midori City Hall, with a population of ~60,000 people , a mid-sized municipality. Spurred by the pandemic, it set a DX policy to fundamentally digitize paper-based citizen application processes and launched a structural reform of its citizen services.

The business model aims to realize a state where “citizens can use every service without visiting city hall.” Starting from vaccine booking and extending to tax, education, library, and waste collection, Multiple government services delivered together through one account and one portal the creation of a foundation to achieve this was required.

Target citizens

60Kpeople+

Vaccination points

5Venues (in-city)

Monthly SLA

99.9%

BUSINESS FLOW

The 4 steps for a citizen to complete a booking

STEP 01

Create account

Identity verification by email address (AWS Cognito). Secured to municipal-grade standards.

STEP 02

Questionnaire entry

Auto-fill the voucher number and previous dose. Zero transcription errors.

STEP 03

Select venue & time

Open slots across 5 venues × 14 days visualized, with 24h online booking.

STEP 04

Booking complete & notification

Email confirmation (SES) + booking PDF. Supported all the way to same-day check-in.

CHALLENGE

Design challenges to solve

The 4 structural requirements demanded of the platform.

None of these are a matter of technology selection, but rather Citizen satisfaction · Staff productivity · Rollout cost · Citizen trust — a business requirement tied directly to it. A brand-new build from scratch required a design that could “satisfy them all at once.”

Enabling 24h online reception raises citizen satisfaction with zero staff overtime

With counter reception open only 9-17 on weekdays, Unfair to dual-income households, and staff were overwhelmed by phone handling during booking peaks. Without going online, frustration piled up for both citizens and staff.

Automating identity verification eradicates transcription errors and impersonation risk

Voucher numbers from paper applications Misentry rate ~3%, requiring several minutes of manual staff verification per case. At a scale of 10,000 cases, correcting errors became a major operational burden.

Designing a module-extensible foundation lets tax, education, and library services be offered under the same account

Building a separate authentication system for each service Operating costs balloon linearly, and citizens get confused managing multiple IDs. Without guaranteeing extensibility at the design stage, there is no turning back.

Implementing municipal-grade security earns the trust of citizens whose medical data is handled

Compliant with the Personal Information Protection Act + municipal guidelines, Full traceability of every audit log is mandatory. Get the design wrong, and the service launch itself won’t be approved.

ARCHITECTURE

The architecture we built together

Turning citizen services into an “extensible foundation” across 4 domains.

On a cloud foundation that fully leverages AWS managed services, Authentication · Data management · Reception UX · Notification deliveryeach designed to be independently extensible. We built from scratch, fully in-house, a foundation that lets new government services “launch in a matter of months.”

EXECUTION

8months

Duration

42person-months

Total effort

Domain ①

Authentication & account foundation

Challenge

Needed to launch a secure, municipal-grade authentication foundation quickly, without building it from scratch in-house

Solution

RS256 JWT authentication adopted via AWS Cognito

Forced password change and forgotten-password flows delivered as managed services

Domain ②

Questionnaire & booking data management

Challenge

Needed to store vaccination voucher numbers and the citizen master accurately and tamper-proof

Solution

A type-safe ORM layer with RDS MySQL + TypeORM

All access turned into audit logs with CloudWatch

Domain ③

Online reception UX

Challenge

Needed an application flow completable in 3 minutes even by seniors, supporting both PC and smartphone

Solution

Mobile-first design with Vue + Vuetify

Auto-filled identity data + a 4-step wizard for a confusion-free finish

Domain ④

Notification & document delivery

Challenge

Needed to auto-deliver booking confirmation emails and vaccination certificate PDFs with zero operational load

Solution

AWS SES + EJS templates — switch with a config change alone

Certificates instantly downloadable from the citizen’s My Page via S3

TECH STACK

FRONTEND

Vue.js

Vuetify ⚡ vee-validate ⚡ Vuex

BACKEND

NestJS

TypeORM

Passport JWT

Swagger

CLOUD

AWS Cognito

RDS MySQL

S3 + SES ☁ CloudWatch

IMPACT

The value the platform generates

Midori City Hall’s “citizen service quality,” accelerated.

This foundation is measured not by technical metrics, but Citizen satisfaction · Staff productivity · DX investment ROI — business outcomes that it continuously generates.

A foundation supporting a citizen service window that never stops, 24 hours a day

Online applications remove time constraints entirely, letting staff focus on real on-site work

A design that structurally prevents transcription errors and impersonation

Auto-filled identity data + Cognito authentication cut human error and security risk at the same time

A design that maximizes the “one-account municipality”

Tax, education, library, and waste collection all on one foundation — citizens use every service with a single ID

An operations setup that can focus on auditing and compliance

Leveraging managed services lets developers focus on core citizen value, with operations automated via audit logs

🧑‍💼

STAKEHOLDER

Citizens

Service users

Typically,

Queuing at city hall on weekday afternoons, 30-minute waits for paper applications, results known only days later

At Midori City Hall,

3-minute application on a smartphone, 24-hour reception, booking results by instant email

Business impact

Structural rise in citizen satisfaction + zero wait time becomes “the everyday”

👩‍💼

STAKEHOLDER

Staff (Health Division)

Booking & vaccination operations

Typically,

Minutes spent on phone handling, paper transcription, and confirmation calls — overtime became routine at booking peaks

At Midori City Hall,

Manage the booking list on one screen and check in within seconds — focus only on documents pending review

Business impact

Staff working hours cut by ~60% + freed-up capacity reinvested in individual citizen support

💻

STAKEHOLDER

IT systems department

Infrastructure operations

Typically,

Building authentication in-house strains staff with security patches and incident response

At Midori City Hall,

Cognito + a managed DB delegate authentication and infrastructure to AWS — no IAM expertise required

Business impact

Operating cost cut to 1/3, launch time halved + ready to start the next service immediately

🏛️

STAKEHOLDER

City administration

DX promotion & budget

Typically,

One service, one system inflates the budget — each horizontal rollout demands tens of millions of yen

At Midori City Hall,

With a shared foundation, new modules launch in months at minimal added cost

Business impact

DX investment ROI dramatically improved + a “one-account municipality” becomes achievable

Citizen services in one stop, Built in-house from scratch.

Midori City Hall, driving government DX × citizen-facing digital services.

The 4 structural requirements demanded of the platform.

Turning citizen services into an “extensible foundation” across 4 domains.

Midori City Hall’s “citizen service quality,” accelerated.

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