Upcoming projects around Seoul and the rest of Korea
May 3, 2013 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
April 29, 2013 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.
March 31, 2013 8 Comments
The last six days I was in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, for a city-trip. Beforehand I heard a lot of good things about public transport of Taipei and so I was very excited to use subway, bus and other modes of transport. This post is going to summarize my experience and from time to time I’ll compare it with Seoul. The following picture shows the most important historical figures for Taiwan Chiang Kai-shek and China Sun Yat-sen sitting in a train.
March 1, 2013 4 Comments
What do you combine with Curitiba in Brazil? Of course, the first thing that comes into mind, is the bus rapid transit system of that city. Curitiba could be described as the inventor of bus rapid transit and their accomplishments set the bar for other cities around the world. If you don’t know what I’m speaking about, let me introduce this special bus system for you: Bus rapid transit is abbreviated as “BRT” and a good definition is given by the New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency:
Bus Rapid Transit or BRT has been defined as “a flexible, integrated, high performance transit system with a quality image and a strong identity.” BRT combines the speed, reliability and amenities of rail-based rapid transit systems with the flexibility of buses.
February 8, 2013 Leave a comment
Last summer I went to the N-Tower at the mountain Namsan in Seoul. On the way up the mountain I used the convenient cable car and the view from the tower was great. From the top I’ve saw the following thing:
