How to Reduce CO2 Emissions by 10 % in Seoul

June 4, 2013 by 2 Comments

nocar-seoul2Some days ago I came across an article about how Seoul was able to reduce their CO2 emissions by 10% annually. Of course, it was through a policy which aimed at individual transport. The really unique thing is that the reduction wasn’t made by force or through investing billions into structural measures. A program with certain benefits made it attractive for car drivers to participate voluntarily. The only thing they had to do is to leave their car at home once a week and use public transport to get to work. Even greater is how Seoul monitors this activity: through a sticker. Yes, a sticker saves around 2 million tons of CO2. You don’t believe me? Read more of this post

Filed under General News and Updates, Seoul Tagged with , , , , , , ,

No Passengers on Yongin’s Everline

June 2, 2013 by 4 Comments

The light rail line in Yongin connecting Giheung-Station to Everland operates since a month. We wrote about the opening of this Everline and all the issues after the completion. Now after it finally opened, the number of passengers doesn’t meet the expectations at all. However, the private operators are going to get their operating costs fully covered by Yongin City.  Read more of this post

Filed under General News and Updates, Gyeonggi Province

Vision of Transport in Seoul for 2030

May 27, 2013 by Leave a comment

Surprisingly, last week the Seoul Metropolitan Government published their vision for transport in 2030. This is going to lead the direction of transport planning in Seoul for almost two decades. The picture shows how the measures are divided: 1. people (red), 2. sharing (blue), 3. environment (green)

I’m going to introduce to you the most important ideas of each part and in the summary I’ll try to point out the most important problems which might hinder the realization of this vision. Read more of this post

Filed under General News and Updates, Public Infrastructure, Seoul Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Road Safety in Korea

May 23, 2013 by 8 Comments

Korea is constantly developing its infrastructure and realizing new rail or road projects. In my opinion, the quality of road infrastructure and public transport here is on a similar level with Germany, France and United Kingdom. However, if you take a look at the number of accidents and deaths caused by traffic, South Korea is far behind the majority of OECD countries. This post tries to look at the situation, reasons and possible solutions. Read more of this post

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First Survey of Seoul’s Night Bus Services

May 3, 2013 by 5 Comments

Since April 19 there are buses operating through the whole night on two routes in Seoul. The transport division of Seoul City Government published some statistics about the usage of the night bus. This survey is very important because it helps the city government to decide if operation should continue and expand or not. Read more of this post

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Korean Solution to Electric Power Supply for Public Transport

April 29, 2013 by 2 Comments

We talked about the history of streetcars in Seoul and that Korea is developing a new type of public transport method, which merges the advantages of streetcars and buses. The dependence on fossil fuels has to be reduced. The solution are electrically powered vehicles. Electric vehicles could get energy through external connections (like overhead wire) or they have to carry a battery with a high capacity. Even though overhead wires are still very common in Europe, Korea seems to prefer batteries.  That makes the development very challenging and creative solutions have to be found. In Korea, a company seemed to found such a solution, which involves changing batteries instead of recharging them directly inside of the vehicle.

Read more of this post

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YongIn Everline to Finally Open (For real this time!)

April 23, 2013 by 6 Comments

Though some thought the day would never come, the Yongin Everline finally opens on April 26 for service following an opening ceremony which begins at 3pm. Using the line will be free all weekend and fares will be collected from April 29. Despite construction on the line being completed almost three years ago in June 2010, plans to open the line were thrown into turmoil after various disputes between Yongin City and YongIn Everline, including the minimum revenue guarantee (MRG) for the project. Read more of this post

Filed under General News and Updates, Gyeonggi Province, Light Rail Tagged with , , , , ,

Bike Path Extension at Cheonggyecheon

April 22, 2013 by Leave a comment

Since the first time that I’ve heard that the whole Cheonggyecheon is going to be sidelined with bike paths, I waited for this day. I marked it in my calendar, too. Finally, today on this lovely Sunday was the first event and together with a lot of other people I cycled from the beginning to the stream on car-free roads and on separated bike lanes.
bikefree-seoul-1 Read more of this post

Filed under Public Infrastructure, Seoul Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

A Transport Conference About Happiness and Creativity

April 21, 2013 by Leave a comment

On Friday, I’ve attended a conference about challenges and goals for transportation in Korea in the next 12 months. President Park Geun-Hye strongly emphasized in her inauguration speech that happiness of people and the promotion of creative economies are important matters for her and so the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI) implements these two things into their planning.

koticonference2013The main presentation in front of all participants tried to answer the question how do you combine transport with creativity and happiness? Read more of this post

Filed under General News and Updates, Seoul Tagged with , , , ,

Overview of Seoul’s Car-Sharing Services

April 18, 2013 by 1 Comment

Earlier this year, we wrote about Seoul Metropolitan Government‘s car-sharing service which started two months ago. Actually that wasn’t the first car-sharing service in Korea’s capital and also some more followed soon after it. So this post tries to put up an overview of all the services. Read more of this post

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