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Busan Metropolitan City to Install “Safety Signal Lights” in Apartment Elevators… Full-Scale Expansion to the Private Sector Begins

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Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) announced that it will fully implement a pilot project to install “Elevator Door Safety Signal Lights” in multi-unit housing across the city to prevent elevator safety accidents caused by user negligence.

This project has been designed to visually and audibly prevent accidents such as collisions and entrapment at elevator doors, which have increased with the advent of an aging society and the widespread use of smartphones. In particular, the core objective is to help vulnerable users—such as children and the elderly with reduced vision or attention—intuitively recognize elevator conditions.

The “Elevator Door Safety Signal Light” is a system that intuitively informs passengers of elevator status by combining LED lighting and voice guidance—green (open), yellow (closing soon), and red (closed)—based on the opening and closing status of the elevator doors.

As more than 65% of elevator accidents are caused by user negligence, including collisions, falls, and entrapment, the city plans to expand a prevention-oriented safety management system into the private sector through this initiative.

To promote expansion into the private sector, the city plans to actively recommend that district offices and housing management entities install this safety system when installing new elevators or replacing aging components.

In particular, to prevent preferential treatment controversies and respect private-sector autonomy, the city will not designate specific suppliers. Instead, it has prepared administrative guidelines enabling each housing complex to independently select suppliers and proceed after comparing multiple quotations.

The city aims to further strengthen its policy leadership as a “Smart Safe City” by expanding safety technologies already verified through pilot projects in pedestrian overpass elevators into residential living spaces.

To this end, the city is establishing cooperative systems with related organizations and reviewing various measures to promote a culture of safety, including incentives for complexes with exemplary installations.

Bae Seong-taek, Director General of the Housing and Architecture Bureau, stated, “We will expand the achievements of the nation’s first pedestrian overpass elevator safety signal light project into the private sector to eliminate blind spots in citizen safety,” adding, “We will do our utmost to provide policy support and promotion so that citizens can voluntarily participate in creating a safe environment even without subsidy support.”