‘Transportation Policy’ Busan is the Best... 4 Consecutive Years Winner of the ‘Sustainable Transport City Evaluation’ Award

Ministry of Land Achieves First Ever 4 Consecutive Wins in Comprehensive Evaluation Among Local Governments, Dominates Special and Metropolitan Cities

Exclusive Call Taxi for Pregnant Women Also Wins Best Policy Award for 2 Consecutive Years

Overview of Busan City's Excellent Transportation Policy: Mama Call Operation.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Busan City has won the ‘Grand Prize’ for four consecutive years in the 2021 Sustainable Transportation City Evaluation.

The Sustainable Transportation City Evaluation is an award given to local governments that have implemented excellent transportation policies under the Sustainable Transportation and Logistics Development Act. It has been conducted annually since 2014 under the supervision of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Seventy-five cities with populations over 100,000 are divided into four groups according to their size and characteristics. External experts evaluate a total of 32 indicators, including environmental, social, and economic attributes and efforts in the transportation sector of each city.

In this evaluation, Busan City received high scores across all areas, including ▲promotion of eco-friendly transportation means ▲strengthening transportation demand management ▲improvement of walking environments ▲transportation safety and infrastructure development, winning the grand prize in the special/metropolitan city group.

With this award, Busan City set a record as the first city nationwide to win the ‘Grand Prize for four consecutive years.’ Additionally, in the accompanying Best Practice Competition, the policy ‘Mama Call,’ the nation’s first exclusive call taxi for pregnant women, won the Best Policy Award for two consecutive years. This award news signifies that Busan City is recognized as a leading advanced transportation city nationwide.

The city evaluated this achievement as the result of efforts to shift the existing vehicle-centered transportation policy to one focused on ‘eco-friendliness, people, safety, and walking.’

Among this year’s evaluated achievements were policies implemented for the first time nationwide, such as the exclusive call taxi for pregnant women, the semi-public bus accounting sharing system, Safe Speed 5030, and the preferential system for returning elderly driver’s licenses. These have become performance-sharing models for other cities and provinces.

Policies aimed at convenience and safety for transportation-vulnerable groups and pedestrians, such as the construction of pedestrian-only bridges, creation of urban walking paths, expansion of CCTV in school zones, establishment of a deep learning-based smart responsive signal system, and improvement of public transportation transfer centers, also received favorable evaluations.

Park Hyung-jun, Mayor of Busan, said, “Winning the grand prize for four consecutive years is a collective achievement of Busan, and we will strive to advance toward an eco-friendly transportation city. We will research and continuously introduce ultra-high-speed transportation means such as the 15-minute living zone city, trams, autonomous vehicles, and Urban Loop.”

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