“Please make it for us first”… ‘Korean smart city’ receives love calls

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport is promoting the export of Korean smart cities to 10 overseas cities every year. This is because the results of domestic smart city construction projects are beginning to appear, and Korean companies with smart city technologies are receiving numerous requests from overseas. The government plans to support Korean companies’ technologies and products through related programs so that they can be demonstrated overseas.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport on the 8th, 33 Korean companies’ smart technologies have entered 21 countries in three years through the government’s ‘K-City Network’ program. The ‘K-City Network’ global cooperation program supports the establishment of master plans and feasibility studies when overseas governments promote smart city projects, and shares Korea’s smart city development experience and knowledge.

As a representative, Korea’s ‘Smart Integrated Platform’ has entered Mukdahan Province in Thailand and is undergoing local verification. The Smart Integrated Platform is a crime prevention and transportation information linkage system introduced earlier in Korea. Since 2015, the Korean government has been working to build an urban safety net by linking crime prevention and traffic information operated by each local government to one integrated platform. Daejeon City has introduced this platform to share CCTV images with police and firefighters. As a result, the crime rate decreased by 6.2 percentage points year-on-year as of 2018, and the average dispatch time for 119 was reduced by 1 minute and 28 seconds year-on-year.

Mukdahan Province in Thailand is building an integrated platform based on drones. The plan is to share video information from drones with the Mukdahan Provincial Police to monitor the safety of national parks and crack down on illegal activities in border areas near the Mekong River.

In connection with the establishment of Indonesia’s new capital, domestic smart city companies are also expected to enter the market. Regarding the establishment of a smart city control center in the new capital, local companies have no experience in operating cities, so the plan is to apply Korean smart cities to the new capital based on partnerships with domestic companies.

Such smart technology exports are a result of the achievements of the domestic smart city creation project. The government selects more than 10 local governments every year to create smart cities and provides up to 20 billion won in government funding. An MOLIT official explained, “Local governments that have received government support have significantly improved transportation, security, and health services in cities by utilizing smart technologies, resulting in a higher quality of life for citizens.”

A representative example is Jeju Island. Jeju Island is experiencing urban problems such as traffic congestion, parking difficulties, and lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure due to the increase in vehicles. In response, the island has developed a plan to solve these problems by creating smart hubs at gas stations, supermarkets, and convenience stores토토사이트. Smart hubs are facilities that provide services such as shared mobility such as demand-responsive buses and kickboards, and electric vehicle charging. The idea is to solve problems by combining shared mobility and renewable energy. In 2020, Jeju Island was selected for the City Challenge competition and has been implementing the project since 2021. A total of 23 such facilities have been built in the province, and a total of 11,000 people have used shared mobility services. A comprehensive smart plus hub is planned to be built near Jeju Airport to demonstrate the use of vanity transfers and renewable energy utilization.

Bucheon City is developing a service that uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyze CCTV images to identify the movement routes of children under the age of 18, people with dementia, and people with autism in the event of a missing accident. It is currently being piloted at the Wonmi Police Station in Bucheon, and tests are being conducted to improve the accuracy of video analysis. In January of this year, government officials from Saudi Arabia visited Bucheon to benchmark advanced cases of smart city projects.

Meanwhile, the government will actively promote the successful overseas expansion of smart technology through the World Smart City Expo (WSCE2023) to be held at KINTEX in Ilsan in September. During the event, networking-oriented exhibitions such as experiential contents and in-booth consultations on topics such as smart mobility, governance, technology, and national pilot smart cities will be organized.