The South Chungcheong Provincial Office said that the operation of South Korea's first autonomous parking enforcement vehicle was kick-started in Hongseong some 120 kilometers (74 miles) southwest of Seoul on December 4. The unmanned vehicle will roam about the streets around the provincial office six times a day.
"Unlike ordinary parking enforcement vehicles, the autonomous vehicle will not issue tickets, but notify the drivers of illegally parked cars by telling them to move," South Chungcheong Province's Road, Railway, and Aviation Bureau official Kim Sang-cheol told Aju Korea Daily on December 4.
According to a local government official, the autonomous vehicle is equipped with an external camera that can recognize the number plates of cars and an external loudspeaker that can relay and amplify sounds created inside the car. The unmanned parking enforcement vehicle will be operated until May 2024.
"After the operation of the first autonomous parking enforcement vehicle is finished, the South Chungcheong provincial office will determine whether it will adopt more unmanned vehicles," Kim said.
This is South Chungcheong Province's second operation of autonomous vehicles. In October and November 2023, the southwestern provincial office test-operated a small autonomous bus to carry some 1,850 passengers through a 2.5-kilometer route around the South Chungcheong provincial office building. According to a survey of 1,848 passengers who used the autonomous bus in October and November, 85 percent said that their experience of traveling on the unmanned bus was very nice.
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