South Korea To Experience Self-Driving Public Bus Starting This Year

South Korea is determined to be the first country to introduce autonomous cars to the public. As a matter of fact, a government report confirmed today, December 5, that South Korea is set to put these self-driving public buses in use starting this year.

As Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport reported, the government is planning to introduce a self-driving bus on a 2.5-kilometer route between Pangyo subway station and the Pangyo Techno Valley, the Silicon Valley of South Korea and home to some 900 companies. The first ever self-driving bus will be a 12-seater and will run at a maximum speed of 30kph. It will be running along the short route mentioned above starting December this year. 

"Self-driving cars have accumulated over 26,000 kilometers in test runs since last February, and there were no serious accidents even though there were several occasions where the car had to be switched to manual operations," said a ministry official.

These self-driving cars are, however, required to be occupied by at least 2 persons during the said test runs. The ministry, however, said to revise the related law before December to allow unmanned public transportation services by then.

South Korea is also planning to introduce these autonomous buses to the rest of the world on February 9 to 25, 2018. These self-driving buses are set to make its international debut during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games which will take place on the date mentioned above.

Aside from putting these autonomous vehicles to public use, South Korea also planned to introduce a non-stop KTX express train services between Seoul and Busan. This is to further improve public transportation in the country. This non-stop train, which is said to lessen the travel time by at least 20 minutes, is set to start serving the public no later than July this year.