Lessons in Efficacy and Efficiency from South Korea’s Public Transportation

Published 10/06/2022 in Scholar Travel Stipend

Written by Haesung Jee | 10/06/2022

Until I started attending college in the Boston area, I could count on one hand the number of times I had taken public transportation. Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, I rarely used public transportation for a multitude of reasons, including the inaccessibility of bus or subway stations, unreliable arrival or departure times, and the perception of public transportation as unsafe or unclean. Once, I took the bus from my home to my middle school and the trip, normally a 10-minute car ride, took a whole hour because of walking, wait, and stop times.

However, poorly designed public transportation is not merely inconvenient or annoying; it is both an indicator and contributor of systemic socioeconomic inequalities. Historical prioritization of single-occupancy vehicle (SOV) travel in Los Angeles has resulted in vast disparities of access to capital, education, jobs, and health between residents who can afford to own, maintain, and drive cars and those who cannot. Inefficient and inaccessible public transportation limits the quality of life of those in lower socioeconomic classes. Los Angeles’s plentiful, complex public transportation issues require multifaceted approaches that are based in economics, policymaking, and community engagement. While there may not be one simple answer to the improvement of public transportation, inspiration and insight can be found in the ways that South Korea manages its own public transportation system.

Throughout my month-long stay in Seoul this past May, I almost exclusively used public transportation to navigate the city. First of all, I was astounded at the sheer scale of public transportation — the Seoul Metro boasts 22 subway lines, connecting downtown centers, suburban neighborhoods, and even major transportation hubs like airports and train/bus terminals. Because the Metro is so extensive, it was pretty much guaranteed that I could get to any location using public transportation, even if I had to transfer lines once or twice. In contrast, there are some places in Los Angeles that are simply impossible or completely unrealistic to reach using public transportation because there is no bus or subway service to the area.

The most attractive feature of the Seoul Metro system is how rider-friendly it is. Public transportation is the most common mode of transport for commuting to work in Seoul, and I definitely experienced this firsthand whenever I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the subway car during rush hour. Because so many people rely on the subway’s efficiency and reliability to get to work everyday, trains come quickly and regularly, and their arrival times are always given real-time. It is also very easy to navigate subway stations because they have clear signs in multiple languages all throughout the station. Furthermore, transportation apps such as Kakao Map (very similar to Google Maps) not only have live tracking of subways and buses, but also indicate which subway car one should ride for the fastest line transfer or station exit possible. Lastly, screens inside the subway cars constantly show next stops, emergency and evacuation protocols, and public announcements (COVID awareness, keeping etiquette on public transportation, voting, etc.). Both buses and subways also have special seats reserved for the elderly, people with disabilities, and those who are pregnant. While the first two categories are also commonly seen in the United States, seats reserved for pregnant women was new to me. These special pink seats were launched in 2016 during the Pink Light Campaign, which encouraged the public to yield seats on public transportation to pregnant women. I heard regular announcements on the subway and buses to leave those seats empty and to keep an eye out for pink badges, which are given to women to hang on their bags when they are not visibly pregnant. 

In addition, there are about 400 bus routes that run throughout Seoul, including night bus routes that run from midnight to early morning so that public transportation is available regardless of time. From my experience, buses in Seoul are incredibly reliable; they were rarely late, and even when they were, never by more than a couple minutes. Almost all bus stops also had electronic signs that indicated real-time ETAs of buses, and some transportation apps even showed me how many seats were occupied/free on the bus I was waiting for. Buses in Seoul also run in bus-only lanes, making public transportation incredibly competitive against SOV travel, which is highly impacted by traffic congestion. Another advantage of riding buses is the lower carbon footprint. Bus ridership decreases the number of SOVs on the road, thereby lowering carbon emissions and noise pollution. Furthermore, Seoul has made a commitment to ban the registration of new combustion engine buses starting in 2024, indicating its resolve to transition completely to electric and hydrogen-powered public buses.  

Finally, public transportation in Seoul is not just a mode of transport; it is also a major access point and destination of commercial activity. Most, if not all, subway stations in Seoul host underground shopping centers with clothing stores, cafés, bakeries, florists, photo booths, convenience stores, and more. Some stations are known for gigantic shopping complexes, such as the Goto Mall in the Express Bus Terminal, a subway station that also connects the Metro to a major intercity bus terminal. Other stations lead directly to basement levels of large department stores and malls. Remarkably, some people’s final destinations are subway stations themselves! Rethinking underground stations as places of commerce and leisure saves space in such a dense city and encourages ridership. 

One of my favorite parts of my Seoul trip was actually the public transportation because I felt like I was able to experience a public transit system that was being used to its fullest potential, something that I find rare in the United States. I definitely believe that implementation of some of the features I described would encourage greater popularity, efficiency, and efficacy of the Los Angeles public transportation system. A stronger public transit system would not only help bridge the equity gap between socioeconomic classes, help people waste less time in traffic, lead to economic growth in the form of new jobs and development of commercial centers, and help Los Angeles stay committed to fighting climate change and environmental pollution.