'Drones' Fly Over Construction Sites... Advanced Monitoring of Traffic Congestion Situations

Strengthening Monitoring of Traffic Management During Construction in Seoul

To reduce congestion and pedestrian inconvenience caused by long-term road occupancy construction such as railroads and underpasses, monitoring will be strengthened using drones.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 13th that it will introduce an advanced traffic control and inspection system. Since 2004, for road occupancy construction sites, the implementer has been required to establish a traffic management plan in consultation with the city before the construction begins, and the city has been inspecting whether the agreed matters are being followed during the construction process.

Drone footage near a road occupancy construction site. Provided by Seoul City

The city judged that it is difficult to respond immediately to changes in traffic conditions by having officials visit the site in person, so it decided to introduce 'drone filming' starting this year.

First, the city plans to conduct quarterly regular inspections of all 60 long-term large road occupancy construction sites using drones. Through this, it will closely check whether additional lanes have been occupied beyond the prior agreement, and whether traffic safety facilities such as crosswalks are properly installed to prevent inconvenience to citizens.

If the drone inspection results differ from the approved plans, the construction implementer will be asked to provide an explanation, and if unable to do so, corrective orders or fines will be imposed.

In particular, at major intersections with frequent traffic congestion such as Samsung Station intersection and Mia Sageori, the drone footage will be used to analyze queue lengths, delays, traffic volume, and travel speed, and the possibility of adjusting the road occupancy area will be reviewed. If necessary, requests to change traffic flow measures will be made.

Yeo Jang-kwon, Director of the Seoul Transportation Office, said, "We will continue to minimize citizen inconvenience through traffic management using advanced technologies such as drones and improve traffic flow at habitual congestion points," and added, "We also ask construction implementers to actively cooperate to ensure citizens' safety and smooth traffic flow."