On the 17th, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport hosted the ‘National Experience Event of Autonomous Vehicle.’ The event was taken in the center of Gangnam street where civilians were allowed a chance to test drive autonomous vehicles. A total of 7 vehicles, including ACE Lab’s A1, Hyundai Automobile, KATRI, and KAIST’s autonomous vehicles participated. The test driving was done on Yeongdong-daero (Samsung Station ~ Gyeongi Highschool Crossroad) which is approximately 1.4 km. General driving, maintaining safe distance driving, following the traffic lights, responding to pedestrians, vehicle response of intervening side cars, avoiding static vehicles a total of 6 situations was presented for the experience. Jung Yu Bin (17) who test drove the A1 expressed his anticipation “The vehicle responded faster than an actual human driver.” Kim Hyun Mi, the Minister of Land Transport and Tourism also test drove the same route. After the drive, Minister Kim said, “The fact that regular citizens were giving a chance to ride in an autonomous vehicle which was able to maneuver in an actual traffic system safely is a great significance.” He also added on, “There will be safety manuals and road standards for autonomous driving to be done safely in a complicated environment such as the roads in Seoul.” He concluded by saying that full support will be put forth in the improvement and implementation of law and standards in autonomous vehicles.
