The development of future transport is aiming for a smart transport system based on autonomous driving and green technologies. The key challenges are to reduce traffic congestion, minimise environmental pollution, and provide personalised and welfare transport services for the disadvantaged.
The future of transport
Korea has identified five major challenges in road transport and is working to realise them. These are: ensuring safety, improving logistics efficiency, increasing road and public transport usage, improving the environment, and providing welfare transport services.
Safe mobility
The most important of these is ‘safe mobility’. Safe mobility aims to eliminate traffic accidents by applying state-of-the-art technology to vehicles and, in doing so, eliminate fatalities. To achieve this, it is important to maximise the safety of the vehicle. Traditional crash safety technologies such as seat belts, airbags, and impact-dissipating body structures play a big role. However, a major challenge for the future of transport is to create technologies that provide information to the driver to prevent an accident from occurring in the first place, or in some cases, to allow the vehicle to take control and avoid an accident on its own. To date, technologies related to automatic control include anti-lock brakes and drive control systems. The ultimate goal of these technologies is autonomous driving. Autonomous driving technology is expected to develop further in the future, enabling safe driving without human intervention.
In addition, communication between roads and vehicles is essential to ensure safe mobility. If road sensors and traffic signalling systems can communicate with vehicles in real time and use this data to automatically adjust their speed and direction, traffic accidents could be dramatically reduced. In particular, smart traffic management systems are needed to prevent accidents at intersections and multiple collisions on motorways. These technologies require not only improvements in road infrastructure, but also improvements in in-vehicle information systems, so governments and private companies should work together to actively develop related technologies.
Efficient operation technology
The second is ‘efficient operation technology,’ which refers to the increased use of roads and public transport. A representative technology, ‘group driving,’ is being researched. This is when vehicles communicate in real time with the car in front of them or behind them to stop and slow down automatically. By communicating with each other, drivers do not need to keep a safe distance, allowing them to use the existing road space more efficiently. It can also receive information about traffic signals in advance and accelerate and decelerate on its own to avoid being stopped. In this way, they can travel from their starting point to their destination without stopping once. As a result, the time wasted on the road and the energy consumed by idling would be minimised.
The development of such swarm driving technology is not just about the efficient use of road space, but also plays an important role in alleviating traffic congestion and reducing energy consumption. Traffic congestion is becoming a serious problem as urbanisation progresses, and to solve it, it is important to move away from the traditional vehicle-centric transport system and establish a cooperative system between public transport and vehicles. For example, if the public transport system operates efficiently and more people use public transport, congestion on roads will naturally decrease. Also, if public transport and autonomous vehicles work together to optimise traffic flow, it will reduce unnecessary congestion on the roads.
Welfare transport schemes
The third is to secure a welfare transport system for the vulnerable. Korea is currently experiencing a rapidly aging population. There is a growing demand for welfare transport that can be used conveniently and safely by pregnant women, the disabled, and children. In addition, in rural areas, the demand for public transport is decreasing due to the decline in population, so it is necessary to establish a welfare transport system by providing special transport tailored to the transport disadvantaged that responds flexibly to the demand for public transport use, and develop it to ensure the mobility of all citizens.
Welfare transport is not just about providing transport, but also about ensuring that everyone has access to transport infrastructure without discrimination. For example, consideration could be given to introducing reservation-based transport or on-demand transport services for people with mobility impairments or in areas that are difficult to reach by public transport. These systems allow transport disadvantaged people more freedom in their daily lives and play an important role in improving their quality of life.
Green transport
The fourth option is green transport, which minimises environmental pollution. It is a demand-driven transport system that includes environmentally friendly road transport, traffic operation systems and transport policies to drastically reduce road traffic-related greenhouse gases, so as to actively combat climate change and achieve sustainable development based on the future transport environment for people’s health and a comfortable and happy life.
To develop environmentally friendly transport, it is necessary to expand the use of low-carbon emission vehicles such as electric and hydrogen vehicles and promote the full electrification of public transport. This will reduce the amount of pollutants on the road and contribute to improving air quality. Furthermore, continued development of technologies to improve fuel efficiency in vehicles will further help to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions. Furthermore, as part of a green transport system, it is also important to promote eco-friendly modes of transport, such as cycling, and to develop infrastructure that is suitable for walking.
Streamlining logistics
Finally, the efficiency of logistics is the greening and streamlining of logistics, which involves replacing the energy used in logistics vehicles with green energy and planning the logistics process through efficient transport. This will minimise the cost of logistics and, more importantly, minimise wasted energy, minimise pollutant emissions and create a greener transport environment.
To improve the logistics system, a smart logistics system using the Internet of Things (IoT) is needed. This allows logistics vehicles to optimise their routes, rerouting them according to traffic conditions in real time to save fuel. These technologies can not only reduce logistics costs, but also contribute to shorter delivery times. In the future, unmanned delivery systems using drones or autonomous vehicles will also need to be explored, which will make the future of logistics more efficient and eco-friendly.
