Post-Covid19 Pandemic Era and Smart Mobility

The COVID-19 pandemic is leading a trend of rapid change in overall fields such as economy, society, culture, and education worldwide. Due to the non-face-to-face and acceleration of the digital economy due to COVID-19, people's activity patterns are also changing. At the center of the Digital New Deal in the transportation field, which deals with the movement of people and goods, is the digitization of data generated in various transportation fields, and there is a concept of smart mobility that includes innovation of mobility services in the concept of sharing and utilization.

By 2050, about 4.9 billion people, or 68% of the world's population, are expected to be concentrated in large cities, causing inevitable social problems due to traffic congestion, fine dust, and water shortages. As a technology-oriented solution to systematically respond to rapidly changing social phenomena, global large cities continue to make efforts to define and build smart cities suitable for their respective conditions. Smart cities collectively refer to intelligent services that link all social components (buildings, mobilities, transportation systems, users, etc.) and infrastructure to implement them based on IoT/ICT-based hyperconnectivity and one of the key components of smart cities is smart mobility.[1]

Smart Mobility can reduce traffic congestion and environmental pollution by reducing citizens' need for vehicle ownership and reducing the number of vehicles operating in the city. In addition, the development of various types of transportation such as autonomous vehicles and personal mobility and the development of ICT technology can improve individual mobility and convenience by providing transportation services that meet citizens' individual preferences. In other words, Smart Mobility is a field that has the potential to realize both social problem-solving and improving citizens' convenience.[2]

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[1] Core technology development and proof of personal mobility platform, Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology, 2021.7

[2] Strategy for Smart Mobility Development in the Post COVID-19 Era, Korea Transport Institute, 2021.1