Authors
Prof. Keeyeon Hwang | Invited Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (Former President of KOTI)
Dr. Kyuok Kim | Director / Senior Research Fellow, Center for Future Vehicles, Korea Transport Institute
Executive Summary
Introduction
- Goal: Korea aims to advance mobility innovation and integrate new technologies by strengthening legal and institutional frameworks.
- Focus
- Urban mobility challenges: South Korea’s traditional five-day workweek fuelled suburbanization, long commute, and congestion. Infrastructure-focused solutions have unintentionally worsened traffic and regional disparities.
- Technological shift in Mobility: Innovations like vehicle sharing, electric micro mobility, DRT, and CASE technologies are reshaping transportation, improving efficiency, and reducing environmental impacts.
- Regulatory and Industry conflicts: Regulatory hurdles and industry conflicts hinder platform-based mobility, forcing companies out of the domestic market.
Key Concepts:
- CASE - Technologies: Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric for technology-oriented Mobility Transformation
- Act on Support for Mobility Innovation and Revitalization: Promoting innovative transportation services while protecting the public’s right to mobility, advocates regulatory reforms to integrate new technologies, enhancing accessibility, efficiency, and private mobility innovations
Act on Support for Mobility Innovation and Revitalization
- Outdated regulations and industry conflicts hinder progress in transportation despite technological advances and COVID-19’s impact.
- Ambitious goals for expansion of data-, network-, and AI-driven smart mobility services of Korean government.
- Establishing a mobility bureau in the transport ministry (MOLIT) for strategic development to establish a robust institutional framework for consumer-oriented mobility service.
- Annual survey of advanced mobility
- Regular establishment of government-level mobility improvement plans
- Regulatory exemptions
- Administrative, financial, and technical support for pilot projects
- Obligation to submit data collection during the project to the government
- Revisiting fare regulations and supporting peer -2-peer mobility businesses
- Promote bandwidth deregulation, open data policies, and flexible rules for pilot projects
- Strengthen legal and institutional frameworks to resolve mobility sector conflicts
Conclusion
“Despite the transformative influence of innovative technologies and the COVID-19 pandemic on the transportation sector, outdated regulations and industry conflicts continue to impede progress in this rapidly evolving landscape. For technology-oriented mobility transformation (CASE) to become an infrastructure supply-oriented policy alternative, the following additional efforts are needed beyond legal and institutional support.”
Mobility Transformation, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, p. 166
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