Walking the street (image: Picasa, by Ohsun Kook)
SEOUL, Korea, July 26 (Korea Bizwire) – The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transportation will officially begin to develop and distribute the ‘Pedestrian Navigation App’ to promote a healthier city by promoting walking and reducing carbon emissions.
The National Spatial Information Clearinghouse (NSIC) and the National Geographic Information Institute (NGII) within the ministry will first build a database for the ‘Detailed Road Map’ of Seoul until the end of 2013. This ‘Detailed Road Map’ is more precise than usual road maps for vehicles, and includes bike trails, crosswalks, pedestrian overpasses and other structures. Compared to car navigators, the ‘Pedestrian Navigation App’ will offer shortest paths for pedestrians even on roads and structures unavailable to cars, saving energy and time.
The ‘Pedestrian Navigation App’ is the transportation ministry’s a ten-year project based on the research conducted by the GIS/LBS Research Group at the School of Engineering at Seoul National University. The project will spend only one tenth of the conventional cost for mapping for navigation systems, and the ‘Detailed Road Map’ will be drawn nationwide starting with Seoul.
After development, the App will be distributed through various channels publiclly and will assist in various tasks such as safe guidance for children, the elderly, and the disabled, police work, and reducing time required for package delivery. Furthermore, once the nationwide database is completed by 2015 the service will be offered all around the country, while also being shared with the private sector to promote the development of various creative contents of great value.
