At highway rest areas, figuring out where to go after entering can sometimes be more difficult than deciding where to stop.
The Seoul-Gyeonggi Regional Headquarters of the Korea Expressway Corporation announced on September 9 that it would expand its rest-area navigation service together with TMAP Mobility.
The core of this service is that, beyond guiding users to the rest area’s location, it shows the locations of facilities and recommended routes to entrances and exits on the map.
3-Line Summary
1. Rest-area guidance is expanding to include interior routes
2. It will first be applied at 100 locations in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Gangwon
3. Check the screen during use to confirm whether it has been implemented
Menu Information and Facility Locations on One Screen
The Seoul-Gyeonggi Regional Headquarters of the Korea Expressway Corporation announced on September 9 that, starting September 10, it would implement the “Public-Focused Rest-Area Navigation Service” at 100 highway rest areas in the Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Gangwon regions. Moving beyond the existing approach of showing only the rest area’s location, the service provides information before entry along with guidance to interior facilities.
Before entering a rest area, information on representative menu items and popular foods will automatically appear on the navigation screen. The idea is to allow drivers to check meal information without separately operating the search window while driving.
Inside the rest area, the service provides a “simple map” that displays major facilities such as gas stations, restrooms, and nursing rooms using standard icons. For drivers encountering the layout of the rest-area building or fueling area for the first time, the process of finding facilities after parking has itself become part of the guidance. The Korea Expressway Corporation said the service would first be applied at 100 locations and then expanded in stages.
Recommended Routes Displayed from Entrance to Exit
The most noticeable part of this guidance is the interior driving route. The plan is to visualize the recommended driving route from the rest-area entrance to the exit on the map, reducing the risk of vehicles becoming confused or entering from the wrong direction while trying to find facilities.
Rest areas are spaces where drivers briefly leave the main highway, but because gas stations, parking lots, restaurant buildings, and exits are gathered in one place, it can be difficult to turn back after choosing the wrong direction. The Korea Expressway Corporation expected this function to help reduce confusion while driving inside the rest area and the risk of wrong-way-entry accidents.
However, as of the announcement on September 9, this service was a plan to be introduced first at 100 rest areas. It is more accurate to check on the navigation screen whether the rest area you intend to use is included and what information is actually displayed. The key point of this change is that information for selecting a rest area and the route for moving after parking have been connected into one flow.
References
Tags #RestAreas #HighwayRestAreas #RestAreaNavigation #TMAP #TMAPMobility #KoreaExpresswayCorporation #SeoulGyeonggiRegionalHeadquarters #RestAreaWayfinding #RestAreaParking #RestAreaRestrooms #RestAreaRestaurants #HighwaySafety #SimpleMap