The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on the 7th that corporations must have at least 15,000 kilometers of on-road testing records to operate unmanned autonomous vehicles in Korea. However, if the same autonomous driving system is applied, up to five vehicles that have each driven at least 3,000 kilometers can have their mileage combined.
These details were included in the "Unmanned autonomous vehicle safe operation requirements guidelines" released that day by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT). The ministry said it referred to overseas authorization requirements for commercialized Level 4 autonomous vehicles, such as those in the United States and China.
The autonomous vehicle industry is classified from Level 0 (no autonomous driving) to Level 5 (full autonomous driving) depending on a country's technological level. Level 4 is the step just before full automation, where the vehicle moves on its own according to an automated system and can handle emergencies by itself. By contrast, Korea remains at Level 3. Level 3 does not require visually monitoring the driving environment, but the driver must intervene upon a system request—"conditional driver automation." The government has set a goal of reaching Level 4 with domestic technology by next year.
The government also decided that for vehicles using the same autonomous driving system, if they have each driven more than 3,000 kilometers, mileage can be combined for up to five vehicles. The aim is to ease the burden on corporations. A single vehicle does not need to drive 15,000 kilometers; five vehicles driving 3,000 kilometers each will be recognized as meeting the minimum driving requirement.
The government further required real-time monitoring of driving and traffic conditions and the installation of a bidirectional call device between the remote control center and the vehicle so that an emergency stop can be performed remotely if an accident occurs during driving. In addition, passengers must be able to press a disembark request button at any time to make an emergency stop, and vehicles are required to be equipped with an emergency braking function that operates independently of the system.