JUNE 2013, Vol. 10 No. 2 9

Since the ITS (Intelligent Transport System) development plan that the presidential investment plan group started to review in April 1993 and confirmed in September 1997, ITS has been developed rapidly. The optimization of traffic management, electronic toll collection, real-time traffic information and advanced public transpor-tation are the main subjects of ITS studies. Those technologies are already adopted and used for Hi-Pass, BIS (Bus Information System), Automated Enforcement System, Navigators, TPEG, and so on. The concept of 'Ubiquitous' that means 'anywhere, anytime or simultaneous' is being widely spreaded in transportation system of the 21st century, so called U-Transportation.The environmental changes also made the ITS field become 'Ubiquitous'. Now 'Ubiq-uitous' puts various technologies together and the end-users' decision greatly influ-ences building the entire system.

Initiation and Smart Highway

To keep up with the trend, the Ministry of Land and Transport devised "Innovation Road Map of Construction and Transport

R&D", and pushed ahead with VC-10 proj-ects, including the Smart Highway R&D project.The purpose of Smart Highway R&D Project is to develop safer and more convenient highways by means of converging the higly advanced road technologies, IT communica-tion technologies and automobile technolo-gies for the next generation. For 7 years from October 2007 to July 2014, approxi-mately 400 researchers from 68 institutes have been participating in the project with the total budget of 80 million USD under the slogan: "World Best Smart Highway".

Structure of Smart Highway Project

Smart Highway project is composed with the road technology part in the hardware field, the intellectual technology parts, such as communicational traffic man-agement technologies and automotive technologies, and the verification part for

sMArt HighwayOpening the future of high-tech road transport system

by Korea Expressway Corporation

The Blueprint of Smart Highway

Eco-friendly Energy Utilization

Safe Driving in Bad Weather

Auto Detection

Customized Real-time Infomation High-Strength Barrier

The Development of Ubiquitous Transport Environment

commercialization.The road technology part is to realize the core values of Smart Highway so they develop eco-friendly technologies like in-novative sound absorbing wall and solar powered facilities. Also, it includes the R&D projects to minimize traffic accidents by means of enhancing visible distance in foggy weather and preventing or melting freezing loads.The communicational traffic management part develops smart communication sys-tem and traffic management system that enables two-way communication. Thus, it includes Smart-I that detects unexpected incidents in roads and notify the drivers on the roads. Furthermore, they develop multi-used base station and terminals that accept various protocols like WAVE (Wire-

less Access in Vehicular Environments). The Smart Tolling system is being devel-oped for non-stop and multi-lane based electronic toll collection, which will be able to replace the current Hi-Pass system.The automotive R&D part is to realize safe driving environment by connecting roads and vehicles so the researchers develop the radar technologies to detect road conditions like freezing, hydroplaning, fallen objects and to warn drivers about them. Also, they develop lane departure warning system that uses highly precise GPS (DGPS: Differential Global Positioning System) and they develop the automatic vehicle control system for emergencies. Lastly, in the verification part, they estab-lish and maintain the test site in order to verify the results of studies and to pro-mote them to the public. Therefore, they can adopt the outputs of R&D to the exst-ing roads and verify the performance. Also they are inspecting system checks for development technology as well as con-ducting technology demonstration aimed at specialist in related institutions, societ-ies and media organizations.

Until now, although the road construction contributed to industrial development of the Republic of Korea, it also has negative images due to traffic congestions, high accident rate in the capital area. There seems to be a limit to fulfill the demand of users since their standard of living is elevating.In this situation, the Smart Highway will overcome the internal limitation and im-prove the quality of life with the conver-gence of technologies in various fields. Also, it will perform a role to lead the national development as a new engine to bring technological competitiveness for future transportation system.

Smart Tolling verification

SMART Tolling 1 vehicle Abnomalty Detector

Demonstration in Test Road

SMART Tolling 2 Lane Departure Prevention

Scene Reporting in Test Road

WAvE Communication Auto vehicle Control

Operation Center

Road Condition Sensing

The Future of Smart Highway