The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced the ‘Mobility Innovation Roadmap’, a preemptive response strategy for the future mobility era, at the government complex in Sejong on the 19th.
The mobility roadmap includes not only plans to commercialize autonomous vehicles and UAMs, but also tasks such as robot delivery, ‘hypertube’ logistics service, demand-responsive transportation service, and creation of a mobility-specialized city.
At the end of this year, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is the third in the world to commercialize partially autonomous vehicles (level 3) following Japan and Germany, and has set the goal of launching fully autonomous (level 4) buses and shuttles in 2025 and level 4 passenger cars in 2027. erected.
Level 3 of autonomous driving is conditional automation in which driver intervention is minimized and the driver drives only in emergency situations, and Level 4 refers to advanced automation in which the vehicle can respond itself without driver intervention even in an emergency in a specific section.
Unlike Level 3 autonomous vehicles, which currently have production standards and insurance systems in place, Level 4 cannot be launched in Korea due to lack of system.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is planning to preemptively prepare a system suitable for fully autonomous driving by 2024.
The system will be improved so that autonomous vehicle pilot operation districts can also be designated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and at least one city/province will be designated by 2025.
In addition, in the first half of next year, we will designate and operate dedicated autonomous driving lanes for existing highways, and select the ‘Mobility Innovation Expressway’ for the first time, which can demonstrate various autonomous driving services such as autonomous platooning of trucks.
In addition, we plan to operate UAM on specific routes in the metropolitan area connecting the city center and airports as early as 2025.
Using UAM, it is expected that the travel time from the metropolitan area to downtown Seoul will be reduced by regarding 70%.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport plans to introduce the UAM service in earnest in 2025 and expand the service to major regions in 2030.
The goal is to realize ‘uninterrupted movement’ to the final destination by comprehensively linking UAM with autonomous vehicles and public transportation by 2035.
UAM, which will be operated for the first time in 2025, travels on specific routes just like city buses, and following that, the service is expected to be expanded so that it can be used for 30~50km like a taxi.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport plans to conduct a demonstration project in an environment similar to actual service conditions, such as operation between downtown areas and airports in 2024.
The urban demonstration route will be confirmed early next year following airspace consultations with the Ministry of National Defense.
Along with UAM, we are also promoting the spread of drone services for everyday experience.
We plan to additionally designate a special free zone for drones that exempts and simplifies pre-flight regulations so that operators can fly drones without burden, and also relaxes flight approval requirements and safety certification procedures.
Drones can be used for urgent parcel delivery in island areas or freight transportation in downtown areas, and drones are also used to inspect facilities such as bridges and railways.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport expects to discover and spread innovative services through the mobility roadmap, and to support mobility innovation in the private sector without any setbacks through preemptive infrastructure investments, etc.