-2024 World Smart City Expo Awards 2 categories winner-
Incheon City's efforts to become a demonstration and leading city for urban air traffic have been recognized once again.
Incheon Metropolitan City announced on September 9 that it won the sole award in the 'Domestic City' category at the '4 World Smart City Expo Awards' and that Incheon City and Starburst Korea* jointly won the 'Best Partnership' category. This is the second great achievement following the 'National Industry Award - Leading City in Urban Air Traffic' award in April.
* Starburst Korea Cooperation Division ❶ Every year, discover 7 urban air mobility (UAM) technology companies in the region and match them with experts to promote investment attraction and supply chain establishment through technological advancement and participation in domestic and international investment attraction company briefing sessions, ❷ Organize 1:1 cooperation events for commercialization of urban air mobility (UAM) between domestic and international cities/organizations/companies through the business exchange event (Biz-Salon), a side event of the global event (K-UAM Confex)
Incheon City is actively promoting this, including fostering the urban air traffic industry as a key pledge and pledge for the 8th local election. It aims to build a one-day living zone for island areas and a 1-minute transportation system in the metropolitan area by utilizing urban air traffic, and is the first in Korea to enact related ordinances and continue to make active investments.
As a result of these efforts, Incheon City will be the first to promote urban demonstration on Arabat Road as part of the second phase of the Grand Challenge project of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in 2023.
Incheon City has established a ‘real-time safety management monitoring system’ based on digital twins by analyzing the environment and infrastructure, and is utilizing this to establish a civil complaint and emergency response system for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport’s Grand Challenge Phase 2 urban demonstration (Cheongna-Arabat-Gyeyang 14km section).
In addition, to foster the industry, we are building an indoor testing facility for urban air traffic and supporting free use by companies and universities. We are also actively carrying out projects (start-up and marketing support) to support technological advancement, domestic and international investment attraction, and supply chain establishment for companies in the region.
In order to improve the acceptance of cities and citizens, Incheon City is actively operating the Global UAM Regional Summit (GURS)*, and in March, it published the 'Advanced Air Traffic Operation Concept' through international joint research. (①www.mitre.org. ②https://aam-gurs.com)
* (GURS) Incheon Metropolitan City (Chairman City), Los Angeles (US), Paris Reason (FR), Odense (DEN), Incheon International Airport (KR), Paris Airport (FR), Munich Airport (GER), Inha University (KR), Clanfield University (UK), Aerospace Industry-Academia Convergence Institute (KR), UML (US), Mass Autonomy (US), Bauhaus Luftfahrt (GER), DLR (GER)
Incheon City is leading innovation in urban transportation in line with the enactment of the Urban Air Traffic Act (effective April 2024) and government policy directions, and plans to continuously strengthen cooperation with Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.
Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok said, “In order to leap forward as one of the world’s top 10 cities where citizens are happy, Incheon will lead the urban air traffic system, which is a global trend, and strive to build a smart city that will lead groundbreaking changes in the city’s spatial structure and mobility zones by integrating it with the existing transportation and industrial systems.”