Weekly No-Driving Day A Voluntary Program to Reduce Traffic Volume in Seoul
Seoul solution,ESCI-KSP   Nov 14.2018

Introduction

The name of this program is “No Driving Day”. This summary by C40 Cities shows the outcome of the “No Driving Day” program:Seoul’s Weekly No Driving Day program is improving air quality, congestion and saving energy. Every year, two million cars stay off the road – decreasing traffic volume by 3.7%. CO2 vehicle emissions are being reduced by 10% – a total of 2 million tons of CO2, delivering annual savings of $50 million USD in fuel costs. The improved air quality is also improving the health of residents, saving the City millions annually. The program works because it is applied during weekdays, which encourages people to use alternate modes of transport to and from work.
Weekly No-Driving Day: A Voluntary Program to Reduce Traffic Volume in Seoul

Reason to Be Selected

Seoul was able to reduce their CO2 emissions by 10% annually. Of course, it was through a policy which aimed at individual transport. The really unique thing is that the reduction wasn’t made by force or through investing billions into structural measures. A program with certain benefits made it attractive for car drivers to participate voluntarily. The only thing they had to do is to leave their car at home once a week and use public transport to get to work. Even greater is how Seoul monitors this activity: through a sticker. A sticker saves around 2 million tons of CO2.

Highlights:

The City of Seoul introduced the RFID wireless system to prevent paying incentives to those who do not actually comply with the off day requirement. RFID technology is similar to a barcode: it is a contactless identification of data stored in the IC chip on the electronic tag via radio frequency.

Details

This program encouraged residents not to drive one out of five weekdays. Under existing road rationing systems (e.g., 5-day rationing), car owners are asked not to drive their cars with license plates ending with a certain number on a corresponding day, regardless of the owner’s schedule or circumstances. With the Weekly No-Driving Day program, drivers can choose this day. This transportation demand management policy is more people-oriented, allowing people to adjust the off day according to their individual needs and lifestyle patterns.
To encourage more people to take part in and comply with the Weekly No-Driving Day program.The benefits provided by the public sector include toll discounts and those by the private sector include discounts on petrol, carwashes, and car maintenance. Each year, the city spends KRW 10 billion to offer such incentives.
RFID readers installed throughout Seoul read RFID tags placed on vehicles by program participants to verify participation in the program. In 2007, paper stickers were abandoned and replaced with RFID tags to identify participants. However, the number of citizens who did not use the tags increased as they wanted to drive their cars on the designated “rest” day.

Conclusions

Financial incentive measures work better than a sole reliance on voluntary action.IT/Internet use facilitated car users’ registering the choice of a day not to drive and obtaining the e-tag and sticker to receive the discounts provided as incentive measures.And an NGO campaign and public-private sector cooperation in giving incentives produced good results.

 

FULL STORY:

Weekly No-Driving Day: A Voluntary Program to Reduce Traffic Volume in Seoul

Published on Monday, October 22, 2018 in Seoul solution,ESCI-KSP
TOPICS | Seoul | Intelligent | Administration

Reference:

https://seoulsolution.kr/en/content/weekly-no-driving-day-voluntary-program-reduce-traffic-volume-seoul

https://kojects.com/2013/06/04/how-to-reduce-co2-emissions-by-10-in-seoul/

http://esci-ksp.org/project/car-free-days-in-seoul/?task_id=594



Lat: 37.5539
Lng: 126.971
Type:
Region: Asia
Scale: City
Field: Administration
City: Seoul