Seoul City Earns '2021 Excellent Smart City Certification'... Praised for Smart Poles and S-Map

Obtained Smart City Certification from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport for 5 Major Cities Including Seoul and 3 Small and Medium Cities

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Seoul announced on the 10th that it has obtained smart city certification by participating in the '2021 Smart City Certification' contest hosted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. A total of 30 cities participated in this certification contest, and after two months of document evaluation and on-site inspection, eight cities including Seoul were selected.

With this, Seoul continues its status as a top-level smart city, following the '2019 Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Smart City Pilot Certification' and winning the main prize in the city category at the world's largest '2019 Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC)' held in Barcelona.

Seoul plans to introduce its representative achievements at the 5th World Smart City Expo held from the 8th to the 10th, receive the government certificate and plaque, and actively promote itself domestically and internationally as Korea’s representative smart city.

The smart city certification system comprehensively measures smart city performance across three areas?innovation, governance and institutional environment, and services and technology?using 63 indicators to evaluate the level of smart cities in Korea and to discover and disseminate best practices. Following the pilot certification in 2019, the full certification has been implemented since this year, with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport as the host organization.

The eight cities certified this time, including Seoul, were evaluated as excellent in smart capabilities by well establishing smart technologies and infrastructure such as intelligent facilities, information and communication networks, and urban integrated operation centers, as well as smart city promotion systems and institutional foundations, and utilizing public and private data. In the large city category, five cities including Seoul, Daegu Metropolitan City, Daejeon Metropolitan City, Bucheon City, and Anyang City were certified, while in the small and medium city category, three districts in Seoul?Gangnam-gu, Guro-gu, and Seongdong-gu?were certified as excellent smart cities.

Seoul received high evaluations particularly for establishing advanced smart city technologies and infrastructure such as the ‘Smart Pole (S-Pole)’ integrating various ICT technologies, the ‘Digital Twin S-Map,’ and the Seoul Transportation Information Center TOPIS (Transport Operation & Information Service). Additionally, Seoul was well regarded for providing innovative and high-level smart city services in various fields, including the free public Wi-Fi ‘Kkachion,’ the Smart Seoul CCTV Safety Center, the creation of an autonomous driving pilot zone (Sangam area), the world’s first introduction of 5G connected services, the establishment of a public-private cooperation smart city fund, and the operation of citizen participation smart city living labs.

Park Jong-su, Director of Smart City Policy, said, “Through this smart city certification, we have objectively proven the excellence of smart city Seoul and created an opportunity to externally promote and spread Seoul’s outstanding smart city services.” He added, “Going forward, Seoul will lead the future smart city ecosystem based on world-class smart city infrastructure and technology and build an innovative smart city model.”

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