Seoul TOPIS (Seoul Transport Operation & Information Service) is an integrated traffic management center that operates and manages Seoul’s traffic situation and collects traffic information from traffic-related systems and organizations, including the Bus Management System (BS), traffic card system, unmanned enforcement systems and traffic broadcasting, the National Policy Agency, and the Korea Expressway Corporation.

“Seoul TOPIS” (Seoul Transport Operation and Information Services) refers to an integrated traffic center that plans, constructs, and operates Seoul’s Intelligent Transport System (ITS). The Korean name can be literally translated as ‘Seoul Traffic Information Center.’ However, the English name of Seoul TOPIS is more familiar to the public. The traffic information situation control room, which is an important part of Seoul TOPIS, is sometimes easily mistaken for the entire Seoul TOPIS. However, Seoul TOPIS actually refers to the intangible functional organization that manages Seoul City’s ITS, which applies advanced IT to traffic, as a practical department of Seoul City composed of four divisions and 90 employees. During its evolution over the past 15 years, Seoul TOPIS has come to acquire diverse functions and equipment. In 2015, the functions of Seoul TOPIS were systematized in order to launch a new platform. Its components include the six platforms of the central platform (traffic information control room), the bus platform (BIS/BS), the unmanned enforcement platform, the freeway traffic management system (FTMS), the advanced traffic management system (ATMS), and the big data platform (traffic predictions, information support).

Seoul TOPIS collects a wide array of traffic information on a continuous basis, including information on highways and freeways, 9,000 buses, current traffic situations from public traffic card systems, vehicle violations (illegal parking and stopping, speeding, driving in bus lanes), and accidents. Then, based on this information, it analyzes traffic demand or the causes of traffic congestion and provides the real-time traffic information required by traffic facility users and public transportation operation managers. With respect to unmanned enforcement, it comprises an automatic penalty management system that collectively manages the imposition and collection of penalties and fines.

With the use of advanced IT, detailed information on Seoul’s massive traffic system can be collected in real time, and a remarkable corpus of data can be gathered and analyzed by just the one center of Seoul TOPIS. All this is carried out in order to increase the accuracy of the information. Furthermore, by sharing the results of traffic analyses with private corporations and the public, it facilitates the development of various derived information products. Ultimately, Seoul TOPIS works toward the goal of constructing a traffic system that maximizes user satisfaction and enhances the safety of traffic users, as well as minimizing traffic congestion by optimizing the efficiency of existing traffic facilities.

In the 1950s and ’60s, before Korea’s economic development had officially begun, Seoul’s traffic facilities and infrastructure were very weak. Even catching a bus was difficult, and the roads had no traffic signals, resulting in the dependence on hand signals. The ‘surface car’ (also known as the streetcar or tram) constructed in the early twentieth century was basically the only available form of public transport. In addition to the expansion of the city, the route network was gradually extended. However, there were difficulties in handling the ever increasing number of users resulting from rapid economic growth. In addition, with the remarkable increase in the use of motor vehicles and the introduction of buses, which allowed freer movement, the surface car - whose installation and expansion were relatively difficult - inevitably began to decline, resulting in the closure of the last route in 1968.

At the time of the discontinuation of the surface car, Seoul’s public transportation consisted solely of surface cars and buses, each of which transported around half of the city’s population. The official growth of Seoul began at this time, and the city began to section and compartmentalize itself by gradually constructing roads from the nearest regions into the heart of the city, using buses as the main form of transportation.

Throughout the era of rapid urban growth that followed the 1970s, roads were built in order to expand the bus services, and the infrastructure of Seoul’s road system was formed by constructing the Gangbyeonbuk-ro and Hangang bridges as a means of expanding the weak traffic facilities. Furthermore, in 1974, a new era of transport in Seoul was ushered in with the opening of Seoul Subway Line number 1.

However, the consistently rising income of Seoul’s citizens occasioned by rapid industrialization resulted in a surge in the use of vehicles. The increase in road transport facilities inevitably led to further increases in the use of private vehicles, and this in turn resulted in a shortage of roads. At the time, therefore, there was seemingly no practical solution to the chronic road congestion.

In a situation where the general role of public transportation was decreasing in line with the ever increasing use of private vehicles, the status of the subway system rose - compared with that of buses - in the public transportation market in the early 2000s, which was not unrelated to the institutional support for establishing the subway as the main axis of Seoul’s transportation system. However, due to the excessive use of private vehicles, the level of road services declined, and the service competitiveness of buses, which depend on the same roads, weakened in relative terms. This in turn caused an outflow of users to other modes of transport, and the allocated rate of bus passengers fell from 30.1% in 1996 to 26% in 2002 (Seoul Statistics 2016).

Together with the notion that building more roads would not resolve traffic problems, particularly the problem of traffic congestion, the general public came to view the role of public transportation as ever more important, while Seoul City recognized the need to revitalize the visibly declining bus industry. Although the city made several attempts to partially improve the bus service, the public transportation system was not comprehensively reformed until 2004.

The two essential elements of these reforms were as follows:

1) The public transportation service was unified by combining the subway and bus systems in order to reinforce the competitiveness of public transportation.

2) Although the bus industry was run by the private sector at that time, a so-called semipublic bus management system was established to control the market price in the areas of operations and management. This was considered absolutely essential to meet the strategic goal of combining the various modes of public transportation.

In order to secure the competitiveness of public transportation, the quality of the city’s public transportation services had to be improved considerably. The central bus lane, smart traffic card, and the public transportation information system (BMS/BIS) were introduced as elements of the reformation of the public transportation system, which all encompasses Seoul TOPIS.

As seen in the platform composition of Seoul TOPIS, each of the following policies - which were provided as a part of the current manual series - is a platform that handles the operation of the real-time traffic system of Seoul TOPIS.

1) Bus information system (BMS/BIS)

2) Unmanned enforcement system

3) Freeway Traffic Management System (FTMS)

4) Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS)

Fundamentally, the locational information of taxis equipped with GPS is collected in real time to calculate the speeds on roads. This is collected through wireless communication between the GPS fitted in standard vehicles, wireless communication devices, and roadside base stations.

Advanced on-site vehicle detection systems, such as loop detectors and video detectors, are installed at intervals of 250m to 500m on highways to collect the traffic speed and traffic volume information. Surveillance cameras allow the monitoring of communications and unexpected situations, and the road weather information system collects and provides climate information including conditions, temperature and visibility on the roads. In addition, information on traffic situations or unexpected situations is obtained from the National Police Agency, the Meteorological Administration, and citizen reports.

The road and traffic information collected through these channels is gathered at Seoul TOPIS, processed in real time, and then provided to traffic users in real time through diverse media channels such as mobile apps, ARS, navigation, SNS, the TOPIS website, road electronic displays, and traffic broadcasts.

In the event of an unexpected situation on the road, it is detected by a video or automatic detector and automatically displayed on an electronic display. The road control system controls and operates the roads according to the immediate needs, and provides information on bypass roads in order to regulate the flow of traffic. Furthermore, the connection road control system is operated according to the need to prevent any increase in traffic congestion, and the signal control system assists in smoothing the flow of traffic by prolonging the duration of green signals and lights on roads with severe congestion.

Seoul TOPIS also has the function of preparing for the full closure of a road due to an unexpected situation, such as a large-scale rally or bad weather, by carrying out various simulations.

Second, Seoul TOPIS manages approximately 9,000 Seoul buses in real time, and operates a public transportation information system that provides assistance with public transportation information to the users.

Bus-related information is collected in real time by installing bus information collection terminals that use the bus management systems (BMS) and traffic card functions mounted on all buses in Seoul. Through the combined terminals installed on 9,334 buses, all detailed information related to city buses is collected - including the operational status of all buses from the point of departure to the point of arrival; real-time speed; bus locations; sudden accelerations/stops; bypassing bus stops without stopping; route deviations; and driving with the door open. These bus information collection terminals also check traffic card information, and thus collect passenger information in real time. The terminals collect approximately 85 million items of traffic card information each day.

The collected information is provided to the public by automatically calculating bus arrival times and returning passengers using the Seoul TOPIS bus information processing technology. The bus operation management records (including various acts that may harm passenger safety) are systematically stored, analyzed and managed for use as an important index in the regular evaluation of bus corporations, and the bus routes are managed by adjusting unreasonable routes and constructing new routes to support the establishment of an optimal public transportation policy.

There are diverse means of providing bus information. First, bus information terminals (BIT) have been installed at 52% of Seoul’s bus stations to assist passengers with bus arrival times in real time and provide bus information, as well as subway arrival information. Bus passengers are provided with a wealth of information - such as the predicted bus arrival time, information related to buses for the disabled, the last bus of the day, congestion due to accidents, and the predicted time of arrival of the nearest subway - through the bus information terminals installed at these bus stations.

Furthermore, all information at Seoul TOPIS is 100% accessible by the public, and 24 million items of information are provided to the public through the open API method. Private corporations may reprocess this information to suit different types of consumers and to directly provide public transportation information to the users. Currently, a significant number of public transport users who use the Internet or smart phones receive public transportation information through the portals, websites or mobile applications of communications companies or through mobile apps launched by personal developers. As such, the users do not have to depend only on the bus information terminals installed at bus stations, but can plan their use of public transport anywhere, anytime.

All of this bus information, as well as the user-customized information (such as the safe arrival service which helps vulnerable pedestrians reach their destination via text, and an alarm function that notifies passengers of their arrival at the desired destination) can be provided on smart phones. Detailed information and websites can be obtained by accessing the QR code attached to individual bus stops, as well as by an automatic response service designed for bus passengers who are unfamiliar with smart phones.

The bus information collected and provided through such advanced devices displays a rate of accuracy of 98%. The accuracy of this information is amply demonstrated by the high usage rate of the combined public transportation information service, which surpassed 1.4 million hits, and a level of satisfaction of around 96%. Fig. 4 below displays the number and statistics related to the information collected at terminals by the public transportation information system.

The unmanned enforcement system not only exposes vehicles committing violations, but is also the world’s first automatic penalty management system capable of automatically transferring a penalty notice to the owner of a vehicle in violation of the traffic regulations.

First, when the system detects a vehicle committing a violation, the registration plate of the vehicle is searched to automatically record the name of the owner and address of the vehicle. It then sends a penalty report containing photographic evidence and vehicle ownership information to the post office in electronic form. The electronic penalty notice is then automatically delivered to the address of the owner of the vehicle. All processes from the detection of a violation to the delivery of a penalty notice are performed automatically within just two to three days, which represents a great improvement upon the 10 to 15 days it usually took to complete the process prior to its successful automation. Thus, automation has evidently reduced the amount of labor and resources consumed by the process.

Seoul TOPIS operates 308 unmanned enforcement systems and controls approximately 1.8 million illegally parked or stopped vehicles as well as vehicles in bus lanes through this system.

Fourth, Seoul TOPIS is constructing and operating a traffic prediction system that prevents traffic congestion. Currently, traffic prediction is conducted on 157 km of highways, and is scheduled to expand to the main freeways.

In addition to these real-time traffic information services, the data related to the traffic flow on each road, weather, and accidents accumulated over the past five years is analyzed to predict the traffic situation on each road in 15-minute, 1-hour, and 1-day units. Furthermore, if or when an unexpected situation arises, such as an accident, traffic simulation is used to predict the outcome of the situation, and a congestion alarm is triggered to inform the driving public of both the regions and times of traffic congestion in advance, thereby helping drivers to avoid using certain roads at certain times as well as providing other important benefits.

The traffic prediction technology, which was developed by the Korea Transport Institute, shows a verified prediction accuracy of 90% on urban highways. Seoul TOPIS intends to expand the traffic prediction system to the main roads of Seoul to allow citizens to use traffic predictions in a similar way to how they use weather forecasts in everyday life.

Furthermore, the traffic prediction system can be used to prevent potential accidents based on communication between vehicles, i.e. the V2V technology and bilateral wireless communication can be used between a vehicle and communication-based infrastructure (V2I) to provide roadside assistance reflecting real-time road situations, signal changes, and the prediction of crosswalk locations.

Seoul TOPIS: Organization and Operation

Seoul TOPIS is an organization that plans, constructs, and operates the intelligent traffic system, and is composed of 32 public servants in four divisions. Seoul TOPIS has a total of 150 employees who are dedicated to monitoring, controlling, maintaining and managing the traffic situation.

The operation of Seoul TOPIS requires an annual budget of KRW 17 trillion, most of which is used for site facilities and for maintenance and management of the labor force.

Fig. 8 below provides a summary of the statistics related to the operation of Seoul TOPIS, the unmanned enforcement system and other related aspects.

2) Bus Information System