2024.08.21. The Fair Economy — Seoul recently announced plans to actively utilize "Internet of Things (IoT) technology" to care for and protect the safety of socially vulnerable groups, including the elderly, women, people with disabilities, and children.
The city plans to identify smart city services and infrastructure that can apply IoT technology starting next year and expand them throughout the city in earnest.
The city announced that next year it will begin pilot projects to install IoT-enabled integrated safety smart poles in 42 school zones and intelligent information boards equipped with voice-recognition artificial intelligence (AI) at 30 locations on city roads.
It will also share city data in real time, which can be used for research on various urban phenomena and service development.
Since 2018, the city has actively utilized IoT-applied services in the citizen safety sector, including smart senior citizen centers, safe smart security lights for late-night commutes, smart plugs for single-person household care, smart crosswalks for traffic accident prevention, the complex IoT sensor 'S-DoT' that collects data on various urban phenomena, and smart poles integrating smart functions.
First, the city plans to build integrated safety smart poles equipped with speed cameras, illegal parking and stopping enforcement CCTVs, and traffic guidance information boards at 42 locations in school zones next year, laying the foundation for reducing child traffic accidents.
After installing unmanned enforcement cameras in school zones in 2020, a review of traffic accidents in the two years before and after installation found that the number of accidents decreased by 77%, confirming that smart devices such as CCTVs are effective in preventing child traffic accidents.
In addition, by integrating speed cameras, illegal parking and stopping enforcement CCTVs, and traffic guidance information boards—previously installed separately on individual poles—into a single unit, the city was able to reduce traffic accidents while improving urban aesthetics and pedestrian convenience and cutting construction costs.
A smart pole is a smart urban infrastructure that consolidates complex road facilities such as streetlights, traffic lights, and CCTVs into one, and integrates various smart technologies such as public Wi-Fi and IoT to enhance citizen safety and convenience. Currently, 812 various smart poles are installed across Seoul.
In addition, starting next year, city data collected from S-DoT, an IoT sensor installed throughout the city, will be disclosed in real time. The city has decided to actively open the data so that it can be used to research various urban phenomena and develop services that enhance citizen convenience.
S-DoT (Smart Seoul Data of Things) is a complex IoT city data sensor that the city designed and installed to identify various urban phenomena and establish data-based smart city policies.
Installed at 1,100 locations across the city, it collects data on 16 types of urban phenomena at two-minute intervals, including temperature, humidity, noise, illuminance, ultraviolet rays, vibration, wind direction, wind speed, visitor count, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, ozone, and black globe temperature.
Previously, only data collected up to the previous day was disclosed through the Seoul Open Data Plaza (data.seoul.go.kr), but starting next year, it will be disclosed in real time through an API-linked channel.
Accordingly, the city expects that this will enable more detailed research on urban phenomena and the development of various services that improve citizens' convenience.
Lastly, the city will also begin pilot installation and operation of "intelligent information boards" equipped with voice-recognition AI technology at 30 locations with high pedestrian traffic. The city plans to carefully analyze and supplement the effectiveness of the intelligent information boards, which provide route guidance to digital-vulnerable groups through voice and images, and push for their expansion.
The intelligent information board is a system that uses AI to easily provide voice and image guidance on how to reach a destination or use public transportation in response to voice questions. It can also answer questions in foreign languages, which is expected to enhance the convenience of foreign tourists traveling in the city.
Park Jin-yeong, Director of the Digital City Bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said, "IoT is one of the core technologies of smart cities that can be installed on all objects and connect them with each other." He added, "By actively utilizing intelligent IoT, which has evolved to a higher level through the fusion of AI technology, we will create a smart city Seoul where citizens are safe and convenient, and an intelligent city Seoul that becomes even smarter with data."
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