The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that they have selected two demonstration cities for the “Data-Based Smart City” research and development project and will formally launch the Smart City National Strategic Project.
The Smart City National Strategic Project consists of a common core technology development task and two demonstration research tasks. It is a research initiative to develop a Korean-style smart city data hub model, with a total of KRW 115.9 billion in research funding to be invested over five years from this year through 2022.
With the selection of the two demonstration cities, the Smart City National Strategic Project team (Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement) plans to hold an open call for research institutions and companies to carry out detailed research tasks, and to begin full-scale research in August.
The demonstration cities are divided into two types according to research purpose (urban problem-solving type and business-creation type), and Daegu Metropolitan City and Siheung City in Gyeonggi Province were finally selected through deliberation by the National Strategic Project Steering Committee.
The local governments selected as demonstration cities will build a smart city data hub model suited to innovative growth through budget support and technical collaboration with research institutions, and carry out research to link various smart city services.
The “urban problem-solving type” is a demonstration study targeting large cities to address problems commonly faced by cities, such as transportation, safety, and urban administration, and Daegu Metropolitan City was selected as the demonstration city. Daegu, which set “a global leading city where industrial growth and citizen happiness go hand in hand” as its research goal, received high marks for its systematic plans to carry out research on activating smart mobility (transportation), emergency rescue response to accidents and crimes (safety), and early disaster warning response (urban administration).
As a local government autonomous proposal task supported with a total of KRW 9 billion in state funding, Daegu proposed “intelligent video-based analysis research.” It is expected to become a citizen-centered smart city technology study that utilizes CCTV and big data for real-time traffic control, noise problem resolution, and the introduction of electric vehicles.