Autonomous Vehicles Supporting the Transportation-Vulnerable and Inspecting Roads Begin Operations in Hwaseong

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to Hold Opening Ceremony for AI Autonomous Driving Hub on March 20

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it will hold an opening ceremony for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Autonomous Driving Hub in Hwaseong on March 20.

As part of the Autonomous Driving Technology Development and Innovation Project, in which multiple government ministries are participating, the government has invested KRW 1.1 trillion over seven years since 2021 to establish an autonomous driving control system that can be used for supporting the mobility of transportation-vulnerable groups and for road cleaning, among other purposes. The newly established AI Autonomous Driving Hub covers a 36-square-kilometer area in the western region of Hwaseong City with a route stretching 46.5 kilometers.

For the event, eight autonomous public service vehicles developed by research institutions will be exhibited. These include vehicles supporting the mobility of transportation-vulnerable groups or residents in underserved areas, demand-responsive public transport vehicles, shared cars, vehicles for urban environment management, road traffic infrastructure monitoring, emergency patient transport, local buses, and patrol cars and patrol robots.

Kim Yoonduck, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, is receiving an explanation about the autonomous vehicle temporarily operating in Sangam, Seoul last year.

On the day of the event, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yoonduk will personally sit in the driver’s seat as a test driver during the pre-test ride event, accompanied by local residents. The technology applied enables autonomous driving even on atypical roads without signals or lanes, including narrow alleyways in areas with limited transportation access.

The Autonomous Driving Hub is an intelligent transportation system-based control center designed to safely validate still-imperfect autonomous driving technology in real-road environments. The Ministry explained that, by utilizing data such as area traffic flow, road conditions, object recognition, and signal information, it aims to eliminate the blind spots of autonomous vehicles and secure safety. The hub will verify a variety of services in daily life to assess commercialization potential, while also supporting technology validation and service operation for startups, universities, and research institutes.

Plans are also underway to link the hub with the automotive industry incubation program at the Korea Automobile Testing & Research Institute in Hwaseong. The hub will also play a role in accumulating large-scale data and supporting AI infrastructure for the Gwangju Autonomous Driving Demonstration City, which is being prepared for operation in the second half of the year. Minister Kim stated, “So far, autonomous vehicles have only been allowed under temporary operation permits, making advanced testing difficult, but from now on, we will help ensure that safe tests can be conducted on real roads in Hwaseong. I will make this year the inaugural year for a breakthrough in the autonomous driving industry, which represents the leading sector of physical AI.”

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