Seoul's Gangdong-gu district office has drawn up a road safety patrol plan to keep residents safe during the summer rainy season, when typhoons and heavy downpours are most frequent, and has begun full-scale inspections.
The plan aims to prevent serious accidents caused by potholes, road subsidence and sinkholes that can form during concentrated summer rainfall, and to ensure immediate safety measures and emergency repairs when hazards arise.
During the flood-damage prevention period — May 15 through Oct. 15 — the district will conduct intensive patrols of 20 road corridors totaling 64 kilometers, comprising 10 arterial routes (39.0 km) and 10 sub-arterial routes (25.0 km), covering both roadways and sidewalks. A further 102 major road facilities — including general bridges, underground pedestrian and vehicle underpasses, pedestrian overpasses, retaining walls and steep slopes — will also be inspected.
To carry out the inspections efficiently, the district has organized five patrol teams. Key items on their checklist include road and sidewalk subsidence and pothole formation, water pooling around bus stops and crosswalks, safety conditions at road excavation sites, cracking or bulging in steep slopes and structures, and damage to streetlights and lighting fixtures.
The district will also operate a real-time response system using a group chat on the mobile messaging app KakaoTalk. When a hazard is spotted during a patrol, it is shared instantly through the chat, and minor issues are addressed on the spot by the district's rapid-response unit. For larger repairs, the district plans to immediately deploy the specialized equipment and personnel of four road-repair contractors it has under contract.
Alongside this, the district is running a reporting system in cooperation with neighborhood community centers, through which hazards and other notable findings discovered during local patrols are relayed directly to the roads division.
"Summer downpours and typhoons are directly linked to residents' safety, so maintaining proactive patrols and a seamless emergency repair system is essential," Gangdong-gu District Mayor Lee Su-hee said. "Through thorough advance inspections and swift on-site action, we will eliminate road hazards during the rainy season and make Gangdong-gu a safe district where residents can travel with peace of mind."
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