Park Hyejeong, Suncheon City Council Member, Actively Addresses Student School Bus Issues

Some Students at Certain Schools Face Daily Morning Commute Battles Before School

[Suncheon=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Park Hye-jung, a member of the Suncheon City Council in Jeollanam-do, issued a press release on the 9th and took active steps to resolve the student school bus issues in the Suncheon area.

In the case of public high schools in the Suncheon area, contracts with private bus transportation companies had been signed until recently to operate school buses. However, recently, some public high schools have not signed school bus contracts, causing parents and students to strongly protest and demand the resumption of school bus operations from the schools and educational authorities.

The main reasons some schools are reluctant to operate school buses include responsibility in case of traffic accidents and increased workload related to fare settlements. In particular, the enforcement of the Serious Accident Punishment Act scheduled to take effect next year is known to be a major cause of schools avoiding contracts.

Councilor Park Hye-jung has actively proposed a student-centered bus route reorganization plan to seek solutions to these problems.

Since last month, Suncheon City has been supporting students by applying a discounted fare of 1,100 won, allowing students to use buses for 100 won. Building on this support measure, she proposed a customized student-centered bus route reorganization plan aligned with students’ commuting times.

Currently, the bus routes operating in Suncheon take a lot of time for students to commute to and from school, causing many complaints from students. As a result, many parents use private cars to send their children to school, creating a daily morning commuting battle for dual-income families.

To solve these problems, Councilor Park visited Suncheon Transportation and Dongshin Transportation on the 4th and 5th, holding meetings with officials and listening to their opinions on solutions.

Currently, Suncheon Transportation operates 116 buses daily, but due to a decrease in bus users caused by COVID-19, the number has been reduced to 106 buses on average. Now, during the school vacation, the number of students using the buses has decreased, and operations have been further reduced to 88 buses.

The reduction of 18 buses during the vacation period at Suncheon Transportation also proves that students usually make up a large portion of users.

The reduction in operations at Dongshin Transportation is in a similar situation.

Considering the distribution of daily bus users during certain hours excluding vacations, it can be concluded that the proportion of student users cannot be ignored.

Based on this, Councilor Park stated that the bus routes should be reorganized into student-centered routes for about one hour during the morning school commute time from 7 to 8 a.m. She plans to propose a solution that reallocates the shortest routes between students’ residential areas and schools to resolve issues raised by students regarding shuttle bus problems and commuting.

Meanwhile, due to decreased income for bus companies caused by COVID-19, bus drivers are barely working full attendance, and the company believes there will be enough workers applying to support morning school commute shifts.

If Suncheon City, Dongshin Transportation, and Suncheon Transportation can properly negotiate additional student-centered bus route allocations and labor cost issues, it is expected to greatly contribute to increasing the usage rate of the 100-won bus already implemented by the city, guaranteeing students’ commuting rights, and providing parents with more morning time flexibility.

Councilor Park Hye-jung is currently serving as a member of the Jeonnam Education Participation Committee and stated that the student school bus issue is a focused agenda item and the top priority civil complaint of the affiliated Education Welfare Subcommittee.

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