Increase of Seoul’s Public Transport Fares

It was speculated since a couple of months that there will be an increase of Seoul’s public transport fares in 2015. Today the transport department of Seoul submitted the proposal for new fare prices to the municipal assembly. We will see a rise of up to 30 %. In addition, Seoul will introduce a discount for early birds.

The last increase of Seoul’s public transport fares was in February 2012. Actually, the long-term plan of Seoul was to increase the prices every (or at least, every second) year. However, transit users aren’t never happy about fare hikes and so they were delayed several times. After the big public transport reform in 2004 the fare was only raised twice: 2007 and 2012. The new fares will be implemented in June 2015.

Update: The new fare system will be introduced on June 27. After consultation with the public, Seoul decided to NOT increase the fares for students and children. We updated the overview and new fares! Second change is that Seoul is going to give foreign elderly (over 65 years) the right to use the subway for free.

The reason for this increase is that the financial burden for Seoul is growing. The transport companies are unable to cover their costs through the current ticket prices and so they depend on subsidies by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and over the years the amount of required subsidies grew steadily. An increase of fares still won’t cover the full costs but it will minimize the financial burden for Seoul.

Currently, Seoul’s public transport fares are as follow:

	Transportation Card (T-Money etc.)
	Adults	Students	Children
Subway	1,050 KRW	720 KRW	450 KRW
Maeul-Bus (마을버스)	750 KRW	480 KRW	300 KRW
Yellow Buses (순환버스)	850 KRW	560 KRW	350 KRW
Inner-city Bus (Blue and Green Buses)	1,050 KRW	720 KRW	450 KRW
Red Buses (광역버스)	1,850 KRW	1,360 KRW	1,200 KRW
M-Bus**	2,000 KRW	1,600 KRW	1,200 KRW

(Source: Daum, *a single-trip ticket, **M-Bus standard fare can vary for each line and region)

 

	Paying in Cash
	Adults	Students	Children
Subway	1,150 KRW*	1,150 KRW*	500 KRW*
Maeul-Bus (마을버스)	850 KRW	550 KRW	300 KRW
Yellow Buses (순환버스)	950 KRW	800 KRW	350 KRW
Inner-city Bus (Blue and Green Buses)	1,150 KRW	1,000 KRW	450 KRW
Red Buses (광역버스)	1,950 KRW	1,800 KRW	1,200 KRW
M-Bus**	2,100 KRW	2,100 KRW	1,200 KRW

(*a single-trip ticket, **M-Bus standard fare can vary for each line and region)

 

The New Fare Prices

The fare increase is different for each type of public transport: The Maeul buses become 100 KRW more expensive. The innercity buses are going to raise prices by 150 KRW. The yellow buses (which I see rarely driving around Seoul) are getting 250 KRW more expensive. Subway will be also raised by 250 KRW. The biggest increase will be for the Gyeonggi buses (the red ones) with 450 KRW. Percentage-wise the biggest change is for the yellow buses with 29.4%, followed by the red buses (24.3%), subway (23.8%), night buses (18.9%), inner-city buses (14.3%) and Maeul buses (13.3%).

The new fares (Updated on June 19):

	Transportation Card
	Adults	Students	Children
Subway	1,250 KRW	720 KRW	450 KRW
Maeul-Bus (마을버스)	900 KRW	480 KRW	300 KRW
Yellow Buses (순환버스)	1,100 KRW	560 KRW	350 KRW
Inner-city Bus (Blue and Green Buses)	1,200 KRW	720 KRW	450 KRW
Night Bus (심야버스)	2,150 KRW	1,360 KRW	1,200 KRW
Red Buses (광역버스)	2,300 KRW	1,360 KRW	1,200 KRW
M-Bus**	2,400 – 3,100 KRW	1,600 KRW	1,200 KRW

(*a single-trip ticket, **M-Bus standard fare can vary for each line and region)

The new fares for cash payment (Updated on June 19):

	Paying in Cash
	Adults	Students	Children
Subway	1,350 KRW*	1,350 KRW*	450 KRW*
Maeul-Bus (마을버스)	1,000 KRW	1,000 KRW	300 KRW
Yellow Buses (순환버스)	1,200 KRW	1,200 KRW	350 KRW
Inner-city Bus (Blue and Green Buses)	1,300 KRW	1,300 KRW	450 KRW
Night Bus (심야버스)	2,250 KRW	2,250 KRW	1,200 KRW
Red Buses (광역버스)	2,400 KRW	2,400 KRW	1,200 KRW
M-Bus**	2,500 – 3,200 KRW	2,500 – 3,200 KRW	1,200 KRW

(*a single-trip ticket, **M-Bus standard fare can vary for each line and region)

The table left out the night buses, which currently cost 1,850 KRW. From June their fares will be raised by 350 KRW and so you have to pay 2,200 KRW for a trip on the owl buses.

 

How are people going to react?

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport conducted a survey about people’s perception for transit fare increases. The survey was conducted in 2013. The main question was how much they regard as justified. 27.5% of the 1627 respondents said that there shouldn’t be an increase, 40.6 % were OK with 100 to 200 KRW, 26.7 % even tolerated 300 to 500 KRW increases. Only 4.7 % thought that an increase between 600 and 1000 KRW is justified (and 0.5 % others). So now we have an increase between 100 to 450 KRW and we can expect to see some complaints of Gyeonggi bus users.

Lately, there was also a discussion about the calculation of subsidies and expenses by the bus companies. Each bus company receives subsidies from the Seoul Metropolitan Government to cover their costs and have some profits. Some experts doubt that the calculation system is working well. It seems that the bus companies get more money than they should. The reason is that the subsidies are calculated by multiplying certain factors (the number of transported passengers, costs for drivers, repair costs etc.) but it doesn’t include the profits of the bus companies. They are able to make money through advertisement on vehicles, for example. Yet we won’t see a reform of the subsidy system.

 

Discount for early birds

Seoul’s public transport fares are going to become more flexible. If a transit user takes a bus before 6:30 am, then he will receive a 20% discount. The goal is to reduce the people during peak hours (morning rush hour). Singapore introduced such a concept in 2013. Everybody who uses the subway in Singapore before 7:45 am rides for free.

For the future, I hope that they will implement monthly tickets. Paying a fixed price and use the public transport as much as you want is generally a good system. Especially low-income families should receive a monthly voucher in order to stay mobile without financial expenses.