Daejeon Selected for Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Smart City Challenge Project

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Daejeon has been selected as the final target site for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's Smart City Challenge project.

According to the city on the 18th, the Smart City Challenge project is a public contest conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport since last year targeting local governments nationwide. It aims to solve urban problems using smart city technologies and support the discovery of business models.

Previously, Daejeon was selected for the first phase of the project along with Incheon, Gwangju, Suwon, Bucheon, and Changwon, receiving 1.5 billion KRW in national funding. In addition, the city added private investments worth 1.1 billion KRW and conducted five demonstration projects from June to December last year with local companies around Daejeon Jungang Market, including shared parking, electric fire prevention, unmanned drone safety network, dense fine dust measurement network, and data hub construction.

The second phase is an advanced process of the first phase project. Based on the results of the first phase, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport selected Daejeon, Incheon, and Bucheon as the final project sites on the 12th.

Accordingly, Daejeon will promote the second phase project with a total budget of 25 billion KRW, including 10 billion KRW from the national government, 10 billion KRW from the city, and 5 billion KRW in private investments, until 2022.

First, the city will secure more than 30,000 additional shared parking spaces throughout Daejeon and establish a foundation that allows the use of all public and private parking lots in the region through a single app. Also, about 6,000 additional electric fire prevention sensors will be installed in high-risk areas such as traditional markets and old factories to preemptively block electrical fire causes.

In particular, by placing drone stations at 26 119 Safety Centers, drones will immediately dispatch to the scene upon fire reports, providing real-time video footage to the 119 control room and firefighting sites.

Furthermore, the cloud data hub, which collects and processes various urban data, will analyze data for use in policy-making by administrative agencies and supply data to research institutes, private companies, and citizens who need urban data.

Heo Tae-jung, Mayor of Daejeon, said, “The Challenge project is significant because it is a project that citizens can feel in their daily lives and that improves quality of life. By 2022, when the project is completed, we will also create an opportunity to widely promote the excellence of Daejeon and South Korea’s smart cities through the UCLG Daejeon Congress.”