Daegu Metropolitan City (DMC) will be jointly offering a paid shipping service with self-driving vehicles from February with Sonnet.ai, a company which specializes in autonomous driving technologies, in Suseong Alpha City.
Paid transport of passengers via self-driving cars is permitted, by the Act on the Promotion of and Support for Commercialization of Autonomous Vehicles, in “sections for safe autonomous driving.” In December 2021, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport designated Suseong Alpha City (2.2㎢), Daegu Technopolis, and parts of Daegu National Industrial Complex (19.7㎢, 2.6km) as safe autonomous driving sections.
In Suseong Alpha City, autonomous vehicle transport will begin via a circulatory route as a paid service for local residents and those visiting medical facilities. Self-driving shuttle buses will be operated on weekdays from 10:00~17:00 at regular intervals.
Sonnet.ai, the company responsible for providing the service, has been offering it (in a need-based response format) in Daegu Technopolis since January 2022. With the addition of Suseong Alpha City, Sonnet.ai now operates two autonomous vehicle routes in downtown Daegu.
The self-driving cars in Suseong Alpha City will be provided through Raxi, Sonnet.ai’s autonomous mobility service platform (can be downloaded from Google Play or Apple’s App Store or accessed through the website (https://raxi.sonnet.ai)). The service, which will charge customers KRW 2,000, will be available free of charge on a limited promotional basis after it is launched to allow as many citizens as possible to experience self-driving cars.
The route will initially cover a six-kilometer segment (Daegu Grand Park Station~Suseong Alpha City~Daegu Grand Park Station). Later, it will be expanded to include major tourist attractions near Daegu Grand Park, such as Daegu Art Museum and Daegu Stadium, so that it can become established as a shipping service that is of substantive assistance to locals.
The route was designed with a focus on Daegu Grand Park Station (Daegu Subway Line 2) so that it can supplement existing modes of transportation in this key hub of the city.
Lee Seung-dae, the head of DMC’s Innovation & Growth Office, said, “We are pleased to offer an empirical autonomous driving service in Suseong Alpha City on the heels of our success in Daegu Technopolis. Daegu will continue to serve as a leading autonomous driving capital of Korea.”
Source: Daegu Metropolitan City
