South Korea has been testing a bluetooth-enabled system for alerting people on trains when they need to give up priority seating for a pregnant passenger.
The Pink Light campaign was tested by 500 pregnant passengers over a five-day period on the Busan-Gimhae light rail service in Busan, South Korea's second-largest city.
The passengers who tested the system carried badge-like sensors that would activate pink lights next to priority seats when they entered a train compartment, alerting other passengers for whom these seats are not designated that they should move out of the way or stand up so the pregnant passenger could sit in them.
The technology aims to eliminate the social awkwardness often espoused in passengers on crowded carriages having to guess whether others are pregnant and give up priority seating accordingly, or pregnant passengers having to approach other passengers to ask for a seat.
Yet tech journalist and podcaster Ellie Gibson has noted that some might not want the extra attention the pregnant passenger sensor would attract.
"I found the level of attention embarrassing when I wore the 'Baby on board' badge," she said on her parenting podcast, Scummy Mummies, referring to the non-tech-enabled button badge fulfilling a similar purpose on London's Underground train network. "I'm not sure how comfortable I would feel with pink lights going off when I got on a train."
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