Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Conduct a Demonstration Project for a Navigation Solution to Assist Walking for the Transportation Disadvantaged in Singapore

[Auto Herald = Reporter Jeong Ho-in] Hyundai Motor Company and Kia announced on the 18th that they have started ‘Universal Mobility 2.0’, a navigation solution demonstration project in Singapore that can assist the indoor and outdoor walking movement of the visually impaired and wheelchair users and other mobility-challenged people.

Universal Mobility is a smart city project where Hyundai Motor Company and Kia aim to provide a future urban environment and mobility solution that allows everyone, including the transportation vulnerable, to move freely.

Universal Mobility 2.0 is a follow-up project to ‘Enable LA’, a car-hailing service demonstration project conducted by Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors in Los Angeles, California, USA for six months from August 2021 to February 2022, to improve the convenience of walking for transportation vulnerable people. aims to.

Enable LA (Universal Mobility 1.0) is a service name derived from Enable, which means ‘making possible’, and LA, a demonstration area. Professional drivers who have received training in support of the transportation vulnerable drive a dedicated vehicle for wheelchair users who wish to use the service. We conducted a demonstration project that involved visiting people in person and transporting them safely to their destination.

To this end, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors introduced vehicles to suit the convenience of the transportation vulnerable, including modifying the Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride to accommodate wheelchairs. While Enable LA focused on developing solutions for wheelchair users, Universal Mobility 2.0 aims to resolve the difficulties and inconveniences of the visually impaired and the visually impaired and other mobility-disadvantaged people in walking before and after boarding a vehicle.

Universal Mobility 2.0 will be held for 9 weeks at Enabling Village, a community and education campus for the disabled in Singapore, and will provide a route-based navigation solution customized for the transportation vulnerable so that even disabled people visiting the campus for the first time can freely move around the indoor and outdoor spaces of the site. Those with transportation disabilities can receive information on nearby locations or directions to destinations on campus through navigation provided in the form of a mobile app.

In particular, visually impaired people who have the most difficulty walking can use the mode exclusively for the visually impaired to receive all app functions in audio and real-time dynamic obstacle information on the movement path. Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors are working to ensure smooth progress of the demonstration project. We formed a partnership with SG Enable, a government agency responsible for the welfare of the disabled in Singapore, and SAVH (Singapore Association of Visually Handicapped), a civic group for the visually impaired.

SG Enable provides Enabling Village as a demonstration business space, and SAVH supports the recruitment of separate testers for the visually impaired to demonstrate a mode exclusively for the visually impaired. The overall planning and operation of the project will be handled by the Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Smart City Promotion Office. Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors are also collaborating with startups such as Mapxus and Ailytics to develop a navigation solution that assists walking mobility for the transportation vulnerable.

Mapsus, an indoor mapping company in Hong Kong, is responsible for developing digital mapping and navigation solutions for Enabling Village, and Alytics, a Singapore-based video AI analysis company, provides information on obstacles in the movement path of visually impaired users through analysis of CCTV images. Take on the role.

Kim Hye-young, head of smart city promotion at Hyundai Motor Group, said, “Through the last Enable LA project, we concluded that in order to provide complete freedom in the entire movement process for the transportation vulnerable, it is essential to discover assistive solutions necessary not only for vehicle movement but also for walking before and after boarding. “The Universal Mobility 2.0 project will cooperate with the entire ecosystem, including government agencies and startups, to solve fundamental mobility problems in the entire process before and after boarding a vehicle for the transportation vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia plan to develop a mobility solution package for the transportation vulnerable that can be applied to future smart cities by linking vehicles for the transportation vulnerable, which is the result of Enable LA, with walking mobility assistance solutions, which are the result of Universal Mobility 2.0. In addition, we plan to continue to discuss ways to cooperate with domestic and foreign government agencies to build a future urban environment where the transportation vulnerable can move freely.