Hyundai Motor to Pilot ‘RoboShuttle Service’ with AI Mobility Technology at Sejong Smart City

Hyundai Motor Group announced that it will pilot a RoboShuttle(named after ‘Robot’ and ‘Shuttle’) service in Sejong Smart City for two months from August 9.

The service will operate along a 6.1km route with 20 bus stops between Sejong Government Complex and Sejong National Arboretum.

Hyundai Motor has remodeled its four-door van (11-seater Solati) to operate a pilot service of RoboShuttle, adopting autonomous driving technology that combines a robot with a shuttle bus. Hyundai Motor has also obtained temporary operation permission of ‘autonomous driving Level 3’ from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

In particular, the RoboShuttle can control the vehicle after recognizing and judging the driving situation by itself as it is partially applied level 4-comparable core technology developed by Hyundai Motor. Except for some limited situations, the emergency driver doesn't need to intervene in its driving.

Prior to the launch of the pilot service on August 9, Hyundai Motor signed an MOU for the pilot operation of autonomous driving service with Sejong City Transportation Corporation on July 12 and decided to cooperate for the smooth promotion of the RoboShuttle service. In addition, a pilot service of RoboShuttle will operate in collaboration with a demand-responsive mobility service ‘Shucle(named after Shuttle and Circle)’, which has been provided since last year in Sejong City 1 living area.

Shucle is Korea’s first ride pooling service launched last year by AIRS Company, a specialized AI research lab under Hyundai Motor Group, and allows passengers to get on and off the vehicle along the optimal route created in real-time when the passengers call the vehicle.

Hyundai Motor plans to recruit people who want to try the RoboShuttle service in Sejong City through the Shucle application from July 19.

The same as the usage of Shucle service, the vehicle moves to the location asked by a passenger along the optimal route created through an AI algorithm when the passenger selected as an experiencer group calls a vehicle at a nearby stop via the app.

“It is meaningful that we first introduced a RoboShuttle service linking autonomous driving and AI mobility technology to customers,” said an official at Hyundai Motor’s autonomous driving division. “We plan to gradually expand our lineup of fully autonomous driving services such as robot taxi and robotic delivery.”

Reported by 'Smart City Today'