KT teams up with traffic authorities for drive support service
KT’s future business Vice President Song Jae-ho, center, poses with executives from the Korea Expressway Corp. and the Road Traffic Authority after signing a memorandum of understanding at the telecom company’s office near Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, Tuesday, to jointly develop a traffic safety service system. / Courtesy of KT
By Yoon Sung-won
KT said Tuesday it will provide traffic safety services based on big data and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.
The nation’s second-largest telecom company said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Expressway Corp. and the Road Traffic Authority to boost public-private cooperation in providing traffic safety services.
“We will combine databases from the public and private sectors to build services that help users drive safely,” KT’s future business Vice President Song Jae-ho said in a statement. “We will tap into our capabilities in IoT and big data as well as collaborate with government agencies to reduce traffic accidents here.”
Under the agreement, the telecom company and the public organizations will share road information to establish a real-time traffic safety system.
The system, which will be jointly developed by the company and the organizations, will include an early warning feature that notifies drivers of traffic conditions and dangers ahead, a driver condition monitoring feature and an emergency mode that provides accident and location information to rescue workers, the company said.
The service will be first provided to cargo truck and chartered bus drivers who tend to drive for longer periods of time than ordinary drivers and will expand the coverage to the general public.
For this project, KT will provide its big data analysis for cars and traffic safety service for drivers. The Korea Expressway Corp. will provide road traffic infrastructure and integrated traffic information while the Road Traffic Authority will offer real-time traffic information. All the traffic information collected from the public organizations will be managed by the joint service system.
Drivers can receive real-time safety alerts on expressways through the Korea Expressway Corp.’s immediate emergency alarm service. KT’s GiGA IoT Vehicle platform will deliver the real-time information between the corporation and users.
The immediate emergency alarm service collects traffic information from surveillance cameras every 2 kilometers on the nationwide expressway and call centers to provide traffic conditions information to drivers.
This service is currently available through the iNavi car navigation service and has been provided to express buses this month.
Based on this service, the Road Traffic Authority will develop and provide safe driving education programs for drivers of highly dangerous vehicles such as large lorries.