Shinan-gun Receives Minister of the Interior and Safety Award for Citizen Safety Assurance

Realizing Transportation Welfare through the Establishment of a Passenger Ferry Operation Information System for Safe Island Living

Listening to the opinions of island residents on the safe use of ships. ⓒ Asia Economy

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Seo Young-seo] Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do (Park Woo-ryang) received the Minister of the Interior and Safety Award in the field of citizen safety at the ‘2021 Resident Participation Digital-Based Local Community On-Site Problem Solving Project’ hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of the Interior) and the Korea Local Information Development Institute on the 24th.

According to the county on the 30th, this contest project was a collaboration between the public and private sectors, with Sinan-gun, Elephant Cooperative, and the Social Innovation Forum participating and achieving results.

The Elephant Cooperative is a social enterprise where young people dreaming of challenges and experiments form a network to find local problems on-site and directly solve problems together with local residents.

The participation in the contest project was made with the purpose of finding difficulties experienced by island residents due to irregular operations such as ship repairs or cancellations and seeking alternatives on-site.

The project was conducted from June to December with the goal of establishing a ship information guidance system in Byeongpungdo, Jindo-myeon, and Gijeom and Soakdo.

Until now, island residents had many difficulties using transportation information to check the operation of passenger ships due to the influence of sea weather such as fog and storm warnings.

Gijeom and Soakdo, target areas of Jeollanam-do’s ‘Islands You Want to Visit’ project, have seen an increase in maritime safety accidents such as isolation on the ‘Nodu’ located between islands as tourists unfamiliar with tidal times increased.

However, by collecting opinions from island residents and utilizing ICT technology, the ‘Cheonsa Boat Route’ application was developed, enabling real-time location information tracking.

In particular, electronic display boards were installed on each island, making it easy to understand the usage time of the Nodu according to tidal times.

Park Ji-min, director of Elephant Cooperative, which participated as a social organization in the consortium, said, “Through the process of collecting and reflecting island residents’ opinions in the project, we were able to create a result that satisfies everyone,” and added, “I want to continue to devote passion to discovering innovative project ideas.”

County Governor Park Woo-ryang emphasized, “Following the nationwide first implementation of the fully public bus and passenger ship system and the night operation system for passenger ships, we have taken a step forward by establishing a passenger ship operation information system,” and added, “Since there are still many remote islands and small islands with poor transportation conditions, we will continue to strive to expand this.”

Currently, public buses, which have seen a decrease in users due to COVID-19, do not have a location information service system, but it is planned to be expanded in the future to be convenient for island residents and travelers to access transportation information by linking with the passenger ship information guidance system.

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