Skip to main content

Korea aiming to build the world’s smartest highways

One of the ten key projects launched in 2006 by Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport aims to build the world’s most intelligent highways. In a world where eighty per cent of traffic accidents on expressways are attributed to driver negligence, Korea records the lowest level of traffic safety among OECD member countries. The smart highway project aims to reduce the accident rate and encourage people to use expressways more conveniently by integrating information, automobile and road mana
September 4, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
One of the ten key projects launched in 2006 by Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport aims to build the world’s most intelligent highways.

In a world where eighty per cent of traffic accidents on expressways are attributed to driver negligence, Korea records the lowest level of traffic safety among 7353 OECD member countries. The smart highway project aims to reduce the accident rate and encourage people to use expressways more conveniently by integrating information, automobile and road management technologies.

The smart highway project comprises: the development of road-based technology including road weather warning systems, high performance lighting and the development of safety barriers and road signs; traffic management technology using wireless communications, automobile-related technology, vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communications systems and multi-lane tolling systems; and the provision of real time traffic information for drivers and the development of comprehensive road and vehicle management systems and technologies for lane departure prevention and vehicle control assistance based on road related data.

“Creative technologies, including cutting-edge ICT converging technology, will be absolutely needed if we want to change the paradigm of roads to a living space from just transportation infrastructure,” said Lee Eui-jun, the managing director of Korea SMART Highway Study and Application Centre in an interview with BusinessKorea. He added, “We should continuously locate new models for transportation system that contribute to making life more convenient and safe by converging IT, telecommunications, automotive technologies and road management.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Observing driver behaviour in real traffic condition
    March 16, 2016
    The EU’s UDRIVE project will investigate driver behaviour in terms of road safety and the decarbonisation of road transport, as Nicole van Nes and Silvia Curbelo explain. There were nearly 25,700 fatalities on European Union (EU) roads in 2014 or, to look it another way, roughly 70 people are killed in traffic accidents on European roads every day - and many more are injured. Around 22% of the fatalities are pedestrians, 15% will be motorcycle riders and 8% cyclists. So despite the improvements in road safe
  • How safe are smart motorways?
    March 3, 2020
    A valiant attempt to ease the UK’s congested strategic road system? Or an idea that should never have seen the light of day? Alan Dron reports on the controversy over smart motorways...
  • A revisited framework for ITS in Europe
    November 9, 2023
    Following the newly-adopted European Directive on ITS, Joost Vantomme of Ertico – ITS Europe, shares his insights on the legislation and its opportunities for the entire industry
  • In-vehicle automation of safety compliance and other traffic violations
    January 24, 2012
    David Crawford explores new initiatives in enforcement. Achieving the EU’s new road safety target of reducing road traffic deaths by 50 per cent by 2020 depends on removing legal and institutional barriers to the deployment of new enforcement technologies, stresses Jan Malenstein. The senior ITS Adviser to Dutch National Police Agency the KLPD, and a European-level spokesperson on road and traffic safety, points to the importance of, among other requirements, an effective EUwide type approval process for fr