'Convenience Store Item Delivery by Drone' First Demonstration in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi-do... Full-Scale Commercialization of Delivery Service

Verified 69% Reduction in Distance and 70% Reduction in Travel Time Using Drones

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] From now on, convenience store items ordered at pensions can be delivered quickly and conveniently by drone.

On the 19th, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety held a demonstration event in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, and announced the full-scale commercialization of drone delivery services using address-based drone delivery points. The demonstration event was attended by officials from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation, Korea Local Information Research & Development Institute, Korea Airports Corporation, as well as drone-related businesspeople including the Drone Industry Association.

So far, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety has installed 272 drone delivery points in logistics-vulnerable areas to introduce the address-based drone delivery service, and has jointly promoted pilot operations of address-based drone delivery with companies and local governments to check for improvements and verify effectiveness. In particular, in the address information system advancement pilot project, addresses are used as a means for users placing orders, drone bodies, and pilots to confirm locations and communicate. While general road name addresses guide the building entrances, the addresses of drone delivery points specifically indicate locations suitable for nearby drones to land.

The commercialization of the private sector address-based drone delivery service will be conducted in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, and provided through Pablo Aviation’s ‘Ollivery Service (app)’. Drone delivery will be carried out by delivering ordered items to pension area delivery points installed at about 20 locations near the Seven Eleven convenience store in Gapyeong.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety will hold a demonstration event to check the progress of the commercialization of address-based drone delivery in cooperation with Gyeonggi Province, Gapyeong County, Gangwon Province, and Yeongwol County. Through the demonstration, it will verify the effect of reducing distance by 69% (manned 52 km → unmanned 15.7 km) and travel time by 70% (89 minutes → 26 minutes) when using drones compared to traveling to five locations by vehicle starting from downtown Gapyeong.

Going forward, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to expand the ‘public sector drone delivery service’ pilot operation, which has been underway since 2021 in Yeongwol County, Gangwon Province, by the end of this year. By the end of this year, 40 additional drone delivery points will be installed in various locations such as campgrounds, parks, amusement parks, and senior centers to provide public services, and the service will be expanded to the private sector as soon as possible.

Choi Hoon, Director of the Local Autonomy and Decentralization Office, said, “This is a case where the government has built address-based industrial infrastructure to reduce common costs for companies and enable citizens to use new services,” adding, “We will continue to expand the installation of necessary drone delivery points where needed through communication with companies.”

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