Today and tomorrow of vending machine and its services in Japan

More than 5 million of vending machines were so far installed in Japan. The quantity per head is the top in worldwide. One important factor of this success is that public security in Japan is well in force and that makes us possible to install vending machines on the street corner without concern for crime. As a result, unique "vending machine culture" to Japan was established. Recently this vending machine culture is changing its phase from a simple "convenient unmanned shop" to a station providing several services such as; a) various kinds of information; b)food supply to disaster area; c) support to emergency patients; d) security service for outskirts; etc. This paper makes an introduction of these unique services to public and local society provided with vending machines and discusses future possibilities towards advanced vending machine service culture.