KT will work with Hyundai Motor, specialty mobility company MTR and smart school notice platform operator Kidsnote to develop a safety solution for children’s shuttle vehicles.

KT said on Sept. 2 it signed a memorandum of understanding with Hyundai Motor, MTR and Kidsnote to develop a dedicated safe boarding and alighting solution for children’s shuttle vehicles.

The agreement is aimed at preventing safety accidents caused by children remaining or being left in shuttle vehicles and at driving the digital transformation of shuttle operations management.

KT will link the children’s shuttle safety service using its telecoms and cloud platform and a precision positioning service based on “RTX Fast,” developed in collaboration with Trimble. RTX Fast provides lane-level precision location information using satellite signal correction technology. KT plans to expand the scope of application to industrial sectors that require high-precision location information, such as port and yard operations and autonomous driving.

Hyundai Motor will provide vehicle data, and MTR will be responsible for applying in-vehicle safety devices, including the development, self-certification, production and sales of a “KIDI ON Staria EV-based children’s shuttle vehicle.” Kidsnote will connect vehicles and guardians through a parent-facing application and notification services.

Based on this, the four companies will jointly develop a safe boarding and alighting solution for children by linking vehicle data with shuttle operations services. The companies will first apply specialized safety services to a “Staria EV children’s shuttle vehicle” that MTR develops and self-certifies based on the Hyundai Motor Staria EV, and later expand cooperation into various mobility sectors.

The project will also incorporate AI, ultra-wideband (UWB) and low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) technologies. It aims to implement functions such as detecting children remaining in vehicles, real-time location sharing, automatic confirmation and alerts for children boarding and alighting, in-vehicle safety monitoring and automatic driving log records.

The companies will also develop a function to detect emergency situations using children’s boarding, alighting and movement data. They plan to later expand service deployment to vehicles used by private academies, welfare transport vehicles and vehicles supporting mobility for transport-disadvantaged people.

Hyeong-rae Noh (노형래), managing director and head of corporate business at KT’s Enterprise unit, said the cooperation was a meaningful first step to provide a new mobility experience that children and guardians can feel safe about, beyond selling vehicles. He said KT would expand the use of precision positioning across various mobility and industrial sectors.