[Opinion] Promoting a Fully Open, Private-Led 'SOC Digitalization Innovation Project'

The current administration declared strong support for the development of AI, big data, and autonomous driving technologies through its 4th Industrial Revolution response plan early in its term. Accordingly, it has been operating various support measures to revitalize related industries and continuously investing resources. Furthermore, following the COVID-19 pandemic, it announced and has been implementing the Korean New Deal plan as a national development strategy.

Unlike past large-scale national funding investment plans, I applaud the efforts to simultaneously implement service policies that citizens can tangibly experience and related industry development policies to deploy these services.

Recently, in the SOC field where I work, a new movement aimed at implementing tangible public projects has been detected, attracting attention not only from related industries but also from the general public. In February, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) initiated a public project called the ‘ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) Innovative Technology Contest,’ an unprecedented public project procurement method. Traditionally, public project procurement involves the demand agency designing the goods or construction objects, establishing bidding plans based on predetermined specifications and quantities, selecting the successful bidder, and then executing the project. This procurement method generally operates within the framework of the National Contract Act, where specifications and quantities are fixed within the budget scope, proposals are solicited from contractors, or bidders are selected based on qualification reviews and bid amounts. This pre-design approach focuses on stable public project execution by avoiding budget waste and ensuring delivery or construction according to fixed specifications.

However, the aforementioned ‘ITS Innovative Technology Contest’ was planned to introduce innovative services into ITS, which citizens encounter daily, by granting proposal opportunities regardless of the proposer's qualifications or company size.

Introducing innovative technology through the existing procurement method is not a simple task. To proceed from planning to procurement, the total design cost must be calculated by fixing unit prices and quantities based on materials or products already circulating in the market. Subsequently, the contract must pass review, and procurement must comply with these institutional frameworks. The time required to introduce innovative technology under these conditions inevitably becomes a significant obstacle to promptly executing the budget.

To overcome these limitations, MOLIT designated the Korea Intelligent Transportation System Association, a private organization under its jurisdiction, as the dedicated agency for this contest, entrusting the entire process to them. This allowed the contest to proceed while preserving the original intent and purpose of introducing innovative technology. They also set unprecedented conditions: all traditional criteria such as participant qualifications, implementation cases, and dissemination rates?normally required in public project procurement?were removed, and proposals were accepted and evaluated purely based on ideas and service effectiveness.

From a conservative perspective, there might have been concerns that this open contest method, which does not scrutinize participants despite the use of public funds, could be reckless. However, these concerns were alleviated by a two-stage proposal process. In the first stage, proposals were evaluated mainly on novelty and impact to narrow down the candidate pool. In the second stage, detailed proposals were additionally submitted by the selected candidates and evaluated primarily on project implementation capability and service feasibility.

At the end of February, the first-stage proposal submission and evaluation took place. Contrary to initial confusion and concerns about failure, an impressive 57 letters of intent were received from individuals, businesses, and research institutions. Many innovative ideas that could not have been conceived through traditional public procurement design were proposed. This contest, with a total budget of 10 billion KRW, is not large compared to other MOLIT projects, but as a private-led innovative technology contest, it has set a good precedent with its groundbreaking procurement method. There is no doubt it will leave a positive legacy. I hope that fully open contest-type public project procurement methods like the ITS Innovative Technology Contest will be applied in other fields in the future, as they are revolutionary approaches that satisfy both efficiency and innovation simultaneously.

Lee Seon-ha, President of the Korean Transport Society (Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Kongju National University)

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.