The Ministry of Construction and Transportation announced that it has opened its intelligent transportation system (ITS) centers in four locations in the country to provide real- time traffic information services.

The centers are located in Seoul, Daejeon, Iksan and Busan.

The four ITS centers are connected to local governments, police agencies, the Korea Highway Corp., traffic broadcasting companies and others to provide traffic information and weather reports via electronic signboards on the road. Through the centers, people can promptly contact pertinent institutions when an emergency situation occurs.

In addition, traffic information is provided through the websites road.moct.go.kr and roadplus.co.kr and ARS (1333, or 1588-2505). Traffic information providers exchange information through mobile phone and car navigation networks. The national highway ITS is designed to serve as the next generation center to ensure road safety with traffic control, and provide weather warnings, tunnel and bridge information and information on disasters and traffic accidents.

However, the current national highway ITS covers only 1,541 km, or about 11 percent of the entire national highway system of 14,000 km. The ministry plans to expand the highway ITS to cover 30 percent, or 4,200 km of the entire national highway system by 2010.

Source: Korea.net