Some 45,000 experts and decision-makers related to transport from more than 120 countries, including road and transport ministers and vice ministers, will descend on Seoul to participate in the World Road Congress 2015 from Nov. 2 to 5. The goal is to share each country’s policies and experiences, and discuss the direction of future development in the field.
The following are excerpts of an interview between NewsWorld and Director General Kim Il-pyung of the Road Bureau at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) in which he spoke of the upcoming Congress, the introduction of the next-generation ITS, and other policies.
Question: Will you tell our readers about the significance and the 25th World Road Congress 2015 and the benefits the event will bring?
Answer: The World Road Congress 2015, which made its debut in 1908, is the most authoritative international event designed to exchange information and technology and promote international cooperation in the global road and transport filed. The Congress is held every four years by circulating around the world, so it is dubbed the “Olympics of the Road and Transport Filed.”
Korea will be the third country in Asia to host the World Road Congress following Japan and Malaysia. Some 45,000 experts and decision-makers related to roads and transport from more than 120 countries, including road and transport ministers and vice ministers, will participate in the Congress to share each country’s policies and experiences and discuss the future development direction of the field.
The upcoming Congress will serve as an opportunity for Korea to enhance its standing as an advanced country by introducing technology and policy experiences related to the Korean road and transport field and boost the Korean road and transport sector. Korean firms’ products and technologies will be publicized, paving the way for them to enter overseas markets, and the international mega-event will create added values and contribute to boosting the Korean tourism industry.
Roads are considered more indispensable for national balanced land development, industrial activities and the general public’s daily lives than any others.
True to the theme of “Roads and Mobility - Creating New Value from Transport,” this Congress will likely be made into an opportunity to shift the paradigm in the road and transport field by creating new values with the goal of making roads safer, more convenient and smart. I believe this will also greatly contribute to improving the quality of people’s life.
I cordially ask you to care and cooperate in making this Congress a success.
Q: Will you touch on the total length of expressways so far built and expressway projects now under way?
A: The length of expressways now in public use stands at 4,139 km as of the end of 2014.
Twenty-one expressway construction projects are now implemented to expand the national expressway network. The nation will pour 23.95 trillion won into creating 14 new expressway routes, measuring 983 km in length. Projects to expand the existing seven routes, standing at 304 km in length, will cost 4.42 trillion won.
Four expressway routes, totaling 204.5 km in length, are to be created or expanded this year, greatly easing traffic snarls and making expressways more convenient. One new expressway line is the 23.9 km-long Chungju-Jecheon route. Three others, being expanded, are the Seongsan-Damyang protion, the Yangjae-Giheung section, the Ansan-Iljick portion, and the Yeongdong-Okcheon part.
Q: Will you elaborate on the construction of “smart roads?”
A: With the recent development of ICT technologies and such new environmental changes as the spread of mobile gadgets, not only quantitative expansion of roads but also construction of smart highways designed to make roads more efficient and safer have merged as major policy tasks.
MOLIT is installing and operating an intelligent transport system (ITS) along major expressways to build smart roads. It is accelerating its bid to build next-generation smart roads through such R&D projects as the so-called Smart Highway Project.
The ITS began to be built in earnest in the late 1990s. All the expressways, standing at 4,139 km, 19 percent of general roads or 2,566 km, and 9 percent of roads built by local governments or 6,105 km have been covered by the ITS, while transport information centers are set up at 57 locations across the nation.
All together, it can translate into the fact that 14.5 percent of all paved roads, standing at 88,184 km in combined length, are installed with the ITS. The figure is still lower when it comes to a comparison of 30 percent in Japan, but it is remarkable in consideration of the introduction of the ITS 15 years ago. The ministry plans to elevate the ITS coverage of roads across the nation to 25 percent, the level of advanced countries, by 2020.
In particular, the government plans to strengthen support for the installation of the ITS on roads in urban areas whose coverage is lower compared to that of such national road networks as expressways and national roads. The move is designed to maximize the utilization of the ITS by strengthening network connectivity among expressways, national roads and those in urban areas, which will have the effect of easing traffic snarls, enhancing road utilization and managing transport demand.
The ministry is seeking to introduce a next-generation ITS, dubbed Cooperative ITS (C-ITS), to dramatically improve safety and efficiency compared to the conventional ITS.
The Cooperative ITS is an advanced next-generation technology in which vehicles can communicate with each other and/or with infrastructure to exchange all information on transportation flow and dangers to optimize road utilization and dramatically stem accidents. Such R&D activities as the Smart Highway Project to develop technologies related to communications between vehicles and infrastructure are under way. Developed technologies will be applied on expressways on a gradual basis after being verified.
The government already established a master plan for building the Cooperative ITS in late 2013 to lay an institutional foundation for the introduction of the next-generation ITS. A pilot project will be implemented by late 2016.
Q: Will you specify on the current status of introducing national ITS standards and future plans?
A: The ministry has worked for standards on content and formats of information being exchanged among systems to secure interoperation and interaction among ITS systems, and it is also working on setting international standards. We’ve established and utilized a total of eight national standards — five standards on sending and receiving transportation information among transportation information centers to ensure connectivity and integration of transportation information, and three standards on the establishment of basic data on electronic road networks and bus routes. The ITS standardization scheme has so far focused on the pending standardization issues, including integration and connectivity of transportation information. But the private sector’s demand for standardized equipment is somewhat insufficient, and related regulations, including those on gathering the private sector’s views, are also deficient.
Starting this year, we plan to focus on the standardization of the C-ITS, as advanced countries as the United States and EU seek to prevent traffic accidents.
Q: Will you explain the current status of private-public partnership (P3) concessions for the construction of expressways and future plans?
A: Currently, 24 privately-invested expressway projects have been implemented. Of the total, 10 expressways are open to public service, eight are under construction, and six others are on the drawing board for negotiations or design. The ministry plans to aggressively implement P3 concession projects to build major trunk road networks timely and ease traffic snarls between major sections of metropolitan areas.
First of all, we manage the progress of eight privately-invested expressway projects so that they can be opened to public service in a timely manner. The ministry plans to implement them according to stages by easing problems related to negotiations and actual design that could stay in the way of the implementation prior to groundbreaking.
The ministry strives to upgrade the efficiency of operation and users’ convenience for the expressway now in public service. The ministry is seeking to build an integrated charging system between government-financed and privately-invested expressways by 2016 to cope with the stoppage of cars for paying toll charges to minimize such inconveniences as traffic snarls.
We also plan to continue to evaluate the operation of privately-invested expressways in order to improve service standards by upgrading efficiency of their operation and enhancing users’ convenience and strengthen oversight and surveillance into P3 concession corporations.
The ministry strives to do its utmost to make privately-invested expressways beloved by people, reliable, safe and convenient.
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