Busan City's Ineffective and Budget-Cut Taxi Transfer Discount Program to End

Prepaid Card Restriction and Taxi Transfer Discount End March 31

Taxi Activation Expected but Only 1% of Public Transport Users Utilize It

Busan City Hall.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Busan City's ambitious 'Public Transportation (Taxi) Transfer Discount System,' the first of its kind nationwide to revitalize the taxi industry, will end at the end of this month without significant results.

The transfer discount system was first introduced by Busan City in 2017 to provide convenience to citizens using public transportation and to revitalize the taxi industry.

It is a system that offers a 1,000 KRW discount when citizens who have used buses or subways take a taxi within 30 minutes, applied to passengers paying with prepaid transportation cards.

Although introduced to generate taxi demand, the recent widespread use of postpaid transportation cards has led to low citizen usage, continuously raising questions about its effectiveness.

Additionally, among all public transportation users, 99% who use postpaid transportation cards do not receive benefits, while only 1% who use prepaid cards are eligible, leading to criticism from the Busan City Council since 2018 regarding the policy's universality and effectiveness. In December last year, the budget was significantly cut during the 2021 budget review process.

Studies conducted in Gyeonggi-do (2018), Daegu City (2019), and Jeju Province (2019) to introduce taxi transfer systems showed that they were not effective in generating taxi transportation demand.

While the 'Metropolitan Discount Transportation Card' introduced and implemented by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport offers monthly discounts of 7,000 to 8,000 KRW, the taxi transfer discount system provided only about 1,000 to 2,000 KRW in benefits.

Park Jin-ok, Director of the Busan City Transportation Bureau, stated, “The taxi transfer discount system has been abolished due to analysis results from feasibility studies in other cities and provinces showing low economic efficiency, as well as related budget cuts by the city council’s standing committee.”

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