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| Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Minister Kang Ho-in. |
By Kang Ho-in
Sizzling summer days gave way to the crispy wind and clear sky of fall with the change of the season. At this time of the year, you sometimes just want to seat relaxed in the back of a car and admire the view outside. The days will soon come when you do just that alone, behind the wheel, without driving a car.
The Korean government unveiled its plan to bring about this future sooner. Under its first national road plan, the government will extend the expressway network of Korea to 5,000 km by 2020 so that 96 percent of Koreans can get access to the expressway in just 30 minutes. A smart tolling system will be introduced across the nation to ensure a fast passage of cars without stopping at booths for tickets. Roads and bridges will be reinforced to be more resilient to earthquakes by 2018. The policy is designed in the long term to provide sound guidance to future roads by factoring in the upcoming changes in autonomous driving, artificial intelligence (AI), environment, energy and reunification in shaping the policy. Even though the policy was designed for future roads, some of the changes in the policy are already happening.
For instance, autonomous driving is no longer a staple of science fiction. The global market for autonomous vehicles (AV) is expected to grow to 220 trillion won by 2020 and to 1,340 trillion won by 2035. To secure Korea's place in the market, the government is building K-Cities to test AV technologies. Other measures are also being put into place to speed up the launch of Korea's AVs on the market. In July, the C-ITS (Cooperative Intelligent Transport System), an advanced, ICT-based traffic management system, was introduced as a pilot program on some roads between Sejong and Daejeon. With the C-ITS, cars equipped with simple on-board terminals can receive various safety services including warnings against a sudden stopping of the car in front, or an approaching pedestrian at an intersection. As AVs go mainstream, cities will soon have highly intelligent roads that accommodate fully self-driving cars and repair themselves.
Roads of the future will become greener as well. Under the national road plan, the government aims to increase the proportion of green cars to 20 percent by 2020 and is building green infrastructure for this. Green roads will generate electricity from renewable sources including wind, solar and piezoelectric, which will in turn power the electric vehicles running on the roads wirelessly. Repairs will be done either by robots or roads themselves with the advancement of conventional road materials like concrete or asphalt.
Roads will become lighter as personal transportation and green cars become popular. Roads will become more flexible with sections being assembled on demand like Lego. That will reshape the image of cities as being old and polluting as they produce less noise and dust. Cities with future roads will be more efficient and livable with some roads going underground and others above the ground, linking to high-rise buildings. Safety will be enhanced too thanks to the breakthrough in shock absorbing materials used for road facilities and road design. Last but not least, roads will become more transnational, expanding beyond the Korean peninsula to Eurasia under the Asian Highway project.
To realize this future, however, improvement in road transport alone will not be enough. It needs to converge with existing or emerging technologies like AVs, smart cities and geospatial information. Disruptive innovation and cooperation across industries will facilitate the process. Regulations need to be improved as well. Efforts on these multiple fronts will make Korea's roads safer, more convenient and driver-friendly and something completely different from the roads we see today.
A shift in paradigm is sorely needed for Korean roads. Roads have powered the Korean economy and contributed to the balanced development of the national territory and better living standards. However, a dramatic change is needed so as to open a new future for Korea as it did for its economy. Paths between towns and regions used to serve as links where new civilizations were born and expanded. The paths have evolved into roads and they are still evolving.
Kang Ho-in is Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport
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