Have you ever heard of the newly coined word Smombie? It refers to a person who walks on the street looking into a smartphone. It is a combination of Smartphone and Zombie. Smombie will not be the only problem for a particular country. As the number of smartphone users increases in each country, more and more people are involved in traffic accidents while looking into smartphones while crossing the crosswalk despite the red traffic lights. (According to a recent three-year (2014-2016) survey released by the Samsung Traffic Safety and Culture Institute in Korea, 61.7% of distracted pedestrian accidents occurred while using smartphones.) And accidents at crosswalks are not the only ones. It also occurs in children who cannot see the signal because they are covered by pedestrians, or the elderly and the weak who have difficulty identifying the signal of the traffic light.
To prevent accidents at these crosswalks, the Korean government will take special measures. LED traffic lights have begun to be installed on the floor where pedestrians are standing in front of the crosswalk. As a result, good effects have been achieved. According to a survey by the The Road Traffic Authority and the Korea Life Insurance Association, the prevention of jaywalking was 90 percent, the visibility of the night-time range was 90 percent, and the traffic signal compliance rate was 90 percent. According to South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in 2021, the number of vehicle stop line violations has decreased significantly from 24,000 to 7,000 with floor-type pedestrian traffic lights on crosswalks.
There is a representative Korean company that makes and installs floor-type pedestrian traffic lights in front of crosswalks. Sungpoong Solled Co., Ltd. is a company that won the Presidential Award as an excellent procurement product of the Korean government. When Son Jung-Won, a chairman, conceived the new business in 2008, it was the time of the Korean government’s transition to a national project for renewable energy, so she started a project to replace it with LED lights for government offices and others. Since she was in the manufacturing industry using LEDs, she had planned to apply LED lighting to roads using solar panels. When she participated in an exhibition hall, she talked about her idea while talking to a researcher at the Korea Expressway Corporation, and heard the researcher’s concerns. The researcher said that in 2009, the sky blue guide line on the driveway of the highway toll system, when rain or time passes, occurs, peeling off paint or fading light. Upon hearing the story, she developed a sky blue LED light to replace the paint on the sky blue guide ship and installed it on the road surface. (Of course, the power of LED lighting on the road surface was supplied from the solar panel.) The experience at this time served as an opportunity to develop a floor-type pedestrian traffic light in front of the crosswalk.
After the Korea National Police Agency proposed a schematic standard for floor-type pedestrian traffic lights in front of the crosswalk, at the request of the Korea National Police Agency, Sungpoong Solled Co., Ltd. was quickly developed and started installation in March 2018.
In particular, compared to other companies’ products, the case of floor-type pedestrian traffic lights was dug up and turned upside down during heavy rain in summer, and Sungpoong Solled Co., Ltd.’s products were confirmed to operate in an installed state without any problems.
Sungpoong Solled Co., Ltd. placed an LED installation array and a PCB control board in a case and molded by epoxy to differentiate the product. For this reason, not only waterproof, but also resistant to rapid temperature changes such as heat/cold, PCBs are protected, and loads are dispersed so that they are not damaged. Unlike other companies’ products, which generate glare by installing the LED’s light emitting part facing upward, the reflector is installed to reflect light in the direction where pedestrians are standing to reduce glare. As the electric connector inside the case of the floor pedestrian traffic light is nickel-plated, corrosion naturally occurs, and Sungpoong Solled Co., Ltd. rather increased conductivity by plating the electric connector with gold. In addition, due to the requirement not to slip in the standards of the Korean National Police Agency, the upper surface of the floor-type pedestrian traffic light was embossed and additionally applied on it to further reduce glare.
She, who enthusiastically checks the installation of floor-type pedestrian traffic lights every day, believes that Sungpoong Solled’s products will be needed anywhere in the world using smartphones. It is worth looking forward to the business expansion of Sungpoong Solled Co., Ltd. around the world.
▲Sungpoong Solled Co., Ltd.
▲Brand : Floor type pedestrian traffic light
▲Chairman : Jung-Won Son
▲CEO : Jin-Kwan Park
▲www.spsolled.com
▲mr9889@hanmail.net
▲+82-1533-3062
MIKE CHOI
ASIA JOURNAL
