Kakao Mobility will expand its proprietary “Seoul Autonomous Vehicle” service operating in Seoul’s Gangnam District to six vehicles from two and extend operations to traffic safety zones for vulnerable road users. The company plans to help reduce transportation shortages in Gangnam during late-night hours, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. the following day. Kakao Mobility was selected by the Seoul Metropolitan Government as an autonomous vehicle passenger transportation operator and began late-night operations in Gangnam in March. The company said it has accumulated driving data in Gangnam, a challenging environment for autonomous driving because of variables including motorcycles, illegally parked vehicles and jaywalking, and has used the data to improve its autonomous driving algorithms and system stability. Over the past five months, the company has expanded its urban-focused “AI Planner” and validated core end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving technology in which a single integrated AI model handles functions from perception to control. With the larger fleet, Kakao Mobility plans to collect a wider range of road data more quickly and feed it back into its AI training model. The vehicles are also the first autonomous vehicles permitted to operate in traffic safety zones for vulnerable road users. Based on its existing safety-control algorithms, Kakao Mobility developed logic tailored to driving in such zones. Vehicles slow to no more than 80% of the applicable speed limit when entering the zones, while rapid acceleration is restricted to prepare for unexpected movements by pedestrians, including children. The company said it has also improved perception performance and processing speeds by streamlining algorithms and optimizing sensors. Visual and audio alerts are sent to autonomous driving managers before and after vehicles enter the zones to increase their attention to safety. In preparation for commercial autonomous vehicle services, Kakao Mobility has also been conducting daytime data training in