Government to Elaborate Dispatch & Delivery System of "Disaster Notification Text Message"

It is estimated that disaster notification text messaging service generates a social value of about 500 billion won per year.

SK Telecom (CEO Park, Jung-ho) announced on the 27th that it is estimated an average of about 500 billion won in social value was created a year through the analysis of the social value of disaster text messaging services with Professor Song Heon-jae's team at the University of Seoul.

As part of the government's project, a team led by Professor Song Heon-jae of the Department of Economics at the University of Seoul was in charge of the study, and SKT played an advisory role to analyze the social benefits of disaster text systems and derive future development directions.

According to Professor Song's research team's analysis of natural disaster-related texts such as typhoons, earthquakes, and heatwaves from 2011 to 2019, the average number of annual shipments is about 4,000, reducing social costs by about 120 million won. This is to calculate the effect of the reduction in disaster recovery costs and the number of victims through disaster text messages on a city, county, and district basis.

If social disasters such as infectious diseases, which have increased significantly since 2020, are included, the effect of creating social values is expected to be higher significantly. The number of social disasters has risen from 380,000 in 2011 to 480,000 in 2019.

Meanwhile, in order to cope with the increasing risk of disasters caused by climate change, SKT is also leading the upgrade of the emergency disaster text system in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and the National Disaster Management Institute.

SKT and the Ministry of Public Administration and Security are preparing a disaster text delivery system that can narrow the shipping range, which was set to a radius of dozens of kilometers, to hundreds of meters based on cell, which is the range of wireless base station network operation.

Recently, SKT and the Ministry of Public Administration and Security also succeeded in a demonstration project to refine the shipping unit from the existing City / County / District to Eup / Myeon / Dong in Jeju and Changwon.

With the annual number of disaster text messages soaring from 375 in 2016 to 860 in 2018 and 54,732 in 2020, efforts are being made to reduce the inconvenience of some users receiving unnecessary disaster text messages regardless of location.

Meanwhile, the research team plans to present more detailed research results on the social value created by disaster text messages in October. It will also analyze the social value of social disaster texts such as infectious diseases and fires, and the social benefits of elaborating the scope of the messages.

“SKT is always striving to protect the safety of the people and society through ICT technology as part of ESG management. With the analysis of the social value of this disaster text, we will make more efforts to enhance social value through ICT infrastructure," said Lee Sang-hun, head of SKT's policy development office.
 

Reported by Smart City Today