South Korea

In 2009, the Korean Government started a smart grid demonstration project on Jeju Island, which will serve as a test-bed to assess the viability of the smart grid technology and foster its development in the future.

U-bike is a public self-service bicycle rental system for the citizens of Daejeon that joins high-tech IT infrastructure and green transportation to create an eco-friendly and sustainable urban mobility solution. Daejeon Metropolitan City also expanded the bicycle exclusive routes and improved its safety to complement the U-bike system.

Buses have been serving citizens for decades as one of the most typical public transport modes along with subways; however, irregular service intervals due to traffic congestion have caused inconveniences and led to citizens gradually avoiding bus use.

Seoul TOPIS (Seoul Transport Operation & Information Service) is an integrated traffic management center that operates and manages Seoul’s traffic situation and collects traffic information from traffic-related organizations – these include Bus Management System (BS), traffic card system, unmanned enforcement systems and traffic broadcasting, the National Policy Agency, and the Korea Expressway Corporation.

A majority of large cities that simultaneously experienced both physical and economic growth in the late 20th century are now experiencing a rapid increase in the use of motor vehicles and, as a result, have faced with the problem of urban traffic congestion. One traditional method of resolving this problem is to increase new traffic facilities, such as roads.

The freeway traffic management system (FTMS) of Seoul’s urban expressway was first designed by the Seoul Development Institute (currently known as Seoul Institute) in the mid-1990s, and implemented in the 18 km leg of Olympic Expressway in July 1997. After six-month operation as pilot project, the FTMS was used in earnest since February 1998.

Up until 1960s, public transportation had played a crucial role as major urban transportation. However, since 1970s a sharp rise in the number of personal cars coupled with continuous economic growth had caused severe traffic congestion.

The night bus, or so-called ‘Owl Bus’, was first enforced in 2013.  It provides bus services at night time, as needed by the citizens, at affordable prices by designing routes using big data. Already having an interest in the use of big data, Seoul city analyzed data obtained by the Dasan Call Center, which demonstrated that citizens had considerable interest in the traffic field.