The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday it will push for a pilot project to improve taxi lights for 200 taxis in the first half of this year. (image: Korea Tourism Organization)
SEOUL, Jan. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — It is expected that 200 taxis with multi-functional dome lights, which are three times larger than the previous ones, will travel through downtown Seoul in the first half of the year.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday it will push for a pilot project to improve taxi lights for 200 taxis in the first half of this year.
The city will enlarge the size of dome lights attached to the roof of the taxi to make it easier to distinguish between empty cars and reserved cars, and provide a variety of living information such as the fine dust level.
The size of the new taxi dome lamp will be slightly reduced from 40 centimeters to 36 centimeters in width in the front, while the length of the light will be tripled from 14 centimeters to 46 centimeters.
LEDs will be integrated into the enlarged parts to indicate whether or not the vehicle is “empty,” “reserved” or “closed for the day.”
The taxi’s interior light, which had previously indicated whether it was “empty” or “reserved,” will be integrated with an external light.
In addition, the length of the outside indicator’s side will also increase by nearly five times from 25 centimeters to 122 centimeters. LCD panels and various sensors will also be installed on the side of the new taxis.
Through the panels, the city plans to release real-time weather and emergency disaster information as well as public service advertisements such as municipal promotion and small business advertisements.
In order to minimize light pollution and visual interference with other vehicles, only static images will be displayed and the brightness standards will be applied more strictly than the light pollution prevention law.
Furthermore, the city plans to prevent taxi drivers from manipulating the indicators by linking them with app meters to prevent them from marking empty cars as “reserved.”
Currently, taxi drivers often manipulate their lights to pick up long-distance passengers.
Meanwhile, based on the results of the pilot project in the first half of the year, the city will decide whether to expand the project or not.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
