The “Firsts” and “Bests” of Government Innovation

The Korean Government will accredit the “Firsts” of our innovations that contributed to the public’s comfort and safety, and select the “Best” cases of government innovation to spread as examples to our many institutions.

The First

Color traffic lane markings on road

Korea Expressway Corporation
2023-12-29

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The Korea Expressway Corporation (KEC), in 2011, installed ‘Color Guidance Lanes’ at expressways for the first time in the nation.

Increasing Safety and Reducing Confusion! No more trouble with directions for the public.

Content

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The Seoul Station intersection in Seoul. ⓒ City of Seoul Website

√ Overview

√ The Birth of a System

√ Accomplishments and expansion

■ With just a few lines, an innovation on the road

Pink and Green lines, drawn along the road, have gradually become a common sight. These lines are officially called ‘Color Guidance Lanes’. Color guidance lanes are guidance lanes painted on road surfaces so that drivers can easily identify driving directions and routes at intersections, interchanges, and junctions, etc.

While there are three colors for guidance lanes, the common colors visible are pink and green. Pink guidance lanes are utilized if a road splits off in one direction, while green is additionally applied for a second direction.

■ First appearance in 2011, at the Ansan junction of the West Coast Expressway,

On May 3rd, 2011, the ‘Color Guidance Lanes’ were first applied at the Ansan junction of the West Coast Expressway for the first time in the nation.

* The world’s first color guidance lanes are known to have been installed at the Aramachi district of Sendai city, by Japan.

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Korea’s first color guidance lanes, visible at the Ansan junction of the West Coast Expressway

The star of this innovation is Mr. Yoon, Seok-deok, an employer of the KEC who worked at the Gunpo office at the time. His direct inspiration for developing the idea came from a traffic accident on March 2011, when a passenger vehicle and cargo truck crossed ways while changing lanes, leading to a fatal accident.

Given directions at work to develop “a solution that even children could understand” Mr. Yoon headed home. At home, after seeing his children playing with paint and crayons, he devised an idea to “color the roads”.

There were many obstacles to apply this idea in reality and bring forth innovation. At the time, there were only four colors (white, yellow, blue and red) permitted to be painted on roads. It was difficult to receive cooperation from related government agencies, as painting a different color, even for path guidance, would go against road and traffic legislation. Changing such legislation also took a good amount of time. After countless efforts and receiving active cooperation from Senior Inspector Lim, Yong Hoon of the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency (Stationed at the 11th Substation at the time), Mr. Yoon succeeded in introducing the first color guidance lanes to the Ansan junction.

* Utilization of traffic limitation agreements and indemnification policies for active administration, etc.

■ Color Guidance Lanes, visible in countless locations.

The Ansan junction had an average count of 25 traffic accidents per year, but following the implementation of color guidance lanes, the following six months showed a substantial reduction in incidents (3 in total).

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Once the colored guidance lanes were proven to have an outstanding impact on reducing traffic accidents, related government institutions began to take official action.

The KEC began to create internal guidelines starting June 2012, and continued to improved its established installation standards. The KEC moved to expand the implementation of colored guidance lanes to the entire expressway network of Korea, including its junctions (Expanded to 187 locations by June 2015).

In December 2017, even the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) created a “Manual on installation and management of color guidance lanes” and supported the nation-wide implementation of standardized color guidance lanes. Furthermore, the color guidance lanes were connected with traffic navigation systems and road signs so that drivers could identify driving directions with more ease.

On May 17th, 2021, color guidance lanes, which had been limited to being a MOLIT provision, were reflected as official road surface markings on active rules for the Traffic Code by the National Police Agency, thus gaining official legislative grounds.

Color guidance lanes have now expanded their application from not only expressways, but to any area that holds accident risks, including general national roads and regional roads. They have taken an important role of assisting drivers with a safer, easier way to navigate the road.

* As of March 2023, 905 expressway locations in the nation have the lanes implemented, with substantially more locations installed for metropolitan roads.

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[Left] Traffic navigation software in use, showing directions in connection with the color guidance lane system ⓒ MOLIT blog [Right] Color guidance Lanes, painted at a congested inner-city intersection. ⓒ National Police Agency Blog

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