Last Year, Public Transportation Usage Decreased by 27%... Sharp Drops at Each COVID-19 Peak

Gwangju -31.5%, Daegu -30.8%, Capital Area -26.9%
Greater decrease rate in metropolitan and urban rail than city buses

On the morning of November 13 last year, officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul City Bus Transport Business Association are conducting a public transportation mask-wearing campaign at the Gwanghwamun bus stop in Seoul. (Photo by Yonhap News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Jiwon] Last year, the use of public transportation such as buses and subways decreased by 27% compared to the previous year due to the impact of COVID-19.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority announced the results of last year's public transportation usage by analyzing the integrated information system of transportation card big data on the 23rd.

This big data analysis was conducted on approximately 6.72 billion nationwide transportation card uses for city buses and metropolitan/urban railways. This is a 26.8% decrease compared to 9.18 billion uses in 2019.

The number of public transportation uses on weekends and holidays decreased by 36.1% compared to the previous year, showing a larger decline than on weekdays (23.9%). It is interpreted that last year, due to COVID-19, public transportation users reduced unnecessary outings except for commuting purposes.

The average daily number of transportation card uses nationwide decreased by 27.0%. By region, Gwangju area showed the largest decrease at 31.5%, followed by Daegu area at 30.8%, Daejeon area at 29.2%, and the Seoul metropolitan area at 26.9%.

Looking at the change rates by mode, metropolitan/urban railways decreased by 27.5%, and city buses by 26.5%, with metropolitan/urban railways showing a higher rate of decrease.

Gwangju area had the highest decrease in city bus usage at 31.8%, while Daejeon area had the highest decrease in metropolitan/urban railway usage at 34.0%.

Last year's public transportation usage trend was analyzed to have undergone three major changes following the inflection points of COVID-19 spread.

The monthly average daily fluctuation rate of public transportation users was stable at 14.9% in 2018 and 15.0% in 2019, but showed a high fluctuation rate of 41.0% last year.

In mid-February last year, as the infectious disease crisis alert was raised to the 'serious' level due to the Shincheonji Daegu Church-related cluster infection, publictransportation usage significantly decreased. The nationwide daily average public transportation usage of 22.42 million until January dropped to 14.89 million (33.6%) in March.

During February, when the first major outbreak began, Daegu's public transportation usage decreased by about 68.8%, from 930,000 uses per day at the beginning of the month to 290,000 at the end of the month.

Afterward, the recovery trend of public transportation usage, which approached pre-COVID-19 levels until July, reversed to a decline again as cluster infections increased due to the August 15 Seoul downtown rally. The Seoul metropolitan area's public transportation usage continuously decreased after August 20, when the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeded 300, showing an 11.4% decrease on the 31st.

Public transportation usage, which showed a recovery trend until November, turned to a decline again from December. Until the 8th, when social distancing level 2.5 was implemented, there was a slight decrease of 4.1%, but after the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeded 950 on the 11th, it sharply dropped.

In the Seoul metropolitan area, on December 5, when city bus operations after 9 p.m. in Seoul were reduced by 30%, only Seoul showed a 1.5% decrease in usage. On the 8th, when the reduction was extended to metropolitan/urban railways, decreases of 5.5% in Seoul, 3.0% in Incheon, and 4.2% in Gyeonggi were observed.

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