Don't Wait Aimlessly for the Bus That May Never Come... Gyeongnam Province Provides Arrival Information

Bus arrival information system installed at the bus stop in Hamyang-gun.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Saeyan] The inconvenience of having to wait a long time without knowing when buses operating in rural fishing villages will arrive has been alleviated.

Gyeongnam Province announced on the 13th that starting from the 14th, it will implement a bus arrival information service after completing the integrated metropolitan bus information system (BIS) construction project for rural (county) areas, which was promoted in cooperation with 10 counties since early this year.

This project provides bus operation status and bus arrival information of rural buses in 10 counties to public transportation users. After signing a business agreement in December last year between the province, 10 counties, and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, the project was completed through detailed design, infrastructure information construction, system development, and installation work.

Selected for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's metropolitan BIS national subsidy contest project, it received 990 million KRW in national funds, with a total investment of 3.3 billion KRW including provincial and local funds.

A total of 187 Bus Information Terminals (BIT) were installed at major bus stops in the 10 counties. On 228 rural buses, LED destination display boards, automatic passenger counters, and vehicle terminals were installed.

The BIS was built as a single integrated system combining the servers operated by the 10 counties, saving 1 billion KRW in initial construction costs. A Bus Management System (BMS) was also established to check real-time rural bus operation status and the number of passengers boarding and alighting at each stop.

Local governments can analyze bus operation information to adjust routes according to demand, and transparency in financial support for the bus industry can be secured. Transport operators can also promote management rationalization through dispatch management based on real-time measured data.

Rural bus operation information can be checked via bus information terminals installed at stops, smartphone apps, and the metropolitan BIS website. In the future, it will be linked with the National Public Transportation Information Center (TAGO) to allow bus information searches through platforms like Naver and Kakao.

Yoon In-guk, Director of the Provincial Urban Transportation Bureau, said, “By completing this project, the imbalance in public transportation services in rural areas with poor public transportation systems has been resolved, and bus information systems have been established in all 18 cities and counties in the province. It is significant in that it enables transportation policy research and planning using big data from public transportation.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.