Challenges for Environmentally Sustainable Transport in Seoul

Abstract

Throughout the 1990s, Seoul faced demographic changes that created new transportation demands that the city could no longer respond to. These changes in transportation patterns increased private car use, unorganized bus transportation routes, and travel across longer distances. Buses were once the most widely used mode of transportation, but demographic changes devastated the service. The transportation system was in chaos and urgently needed reform. The traditional method of piecemeal approaches for the bus system reform no longer worked, as evident in the mid-1990s in Korea. Innovative and intensive reorganization strategies, rather than fragmented approaches, were necessary. The Public Transportation Reform is a major step towards sustainable mobility. The key of its success lies in its integrated approach combining organizational measures, innovative technology, infrastructure development, and transport operation. Seoul is one of the rare cities to have implemented such comprehensive reform, in such a short period of time, and working simultaneously at different levels. Measures included, among others: * construction of exclusive median bus lanes * reorganisation of the bus network (categorization of bus lines into express, trunk, feeder, and local lines) * reform of the institutional framework (contract provision of bus operators and a semi-public operation system) * integrated multimodal electronic fare system (T-Money) * integrated transport operation and information service (TOPIS) * Compressed natural gas (CNG) buses * car traffic management and enforcement of illegal parking.