Seoul City to Add 6,000 More 'Ddareungi Season 2' Bikes by Next Year, Expanding to 43,500 Units by Year-End

Mayor Oh Se-hoon Visits Ddareungi Rental Stations Near City Hall, Announces Expansion Plans and Listens to Citizens' Opinions
3,000 Bikes Introduced This Year, Additional 3,000 Next Year... 250 Rental Stations and 3,000 Racks to Be Added

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government will add 3,000 public bicycles 'Ddarungi' by the end of this year and another 3,000 next year to strengthen its role as a daily transportation means and meet the growing demand.

According to Seoul City on the 22nd, the city plans to expand the scale of Ddarungi operations to 43,500 units by next year by adding 6,000 more bicycles. Along with the expansion of bicycles, 250 new rental stations and 3,000 bike racks will also be installed.

In response, Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited a Ddarungi rental station near Seoul City Hall that morning to announce the plan to expand Ddarungi infrastructure and meet with users to hear their opinions. Mayor Oh stated, "It is not true that the introduction of new Ddarungi bicycles has been halted," adding, "We will not only add more bicycles but also improve operational efficiency through demand analysis to ensure that citizens do not experience any inconvenience when using Ddarungi."

Seoul City has been operating about 37,500 bicycles and 2,500 rental stations by intensively investing in Ddarungi infrastructure such as bicycles and rental stations. New rental stations will be added mainly around subway stations with no or only one rental station, and 3,000 additional bicycles will be deployed at these new stations. Moreover, if citizens request the installation of rental stations through the Ddarungi app, the city will review the suitability and continue the project of "installing rental stations where citizens want them."

So far, the usage rate of Ddarungi has increased significantly, with membership exceeding 3.25 million. The usage rate of 'Ddarungi' from January to September this year increased by 36.4% compared to last year, especially during commuting hours (8-10 a.m.) by 58.7% and during evening hours (6-8 p.m.) by 41.9%, establishing itself as a daily transportation means.

The cumulative number of uses also surged by 40%, from 59 million last year to 84 million this year, continuing steady growth annually. In addition, Seoul City plans to enhance operational efficiency by flexibly adjusting the number of bike racks according to demand through monitoring after rental station installation. Specifically, bike racks will be relocated from stations with low usage rates that do not require many racks to stations with high usage rates that need additional bicycles, thereby improving bicycle utilization efficiency.

Along with quantitative expansion, efforts will be made to improve quality through operational efficiency and safety enhancement. By operating a bicycle allocation program based on big data, the city will address the imbalance of bicycles among rental stations during commuting hours and expand on-site maintenance to improve operational efficiency. Through this, the number of bicycles felt by users on-site will be much greater than the number of newly introduced bicycles.

To ensure citizens can safely use bicycles, the newly introduced Ddarungi bicycles will have reinforced frames with strengthened top tubes, and the number of reflectors on the wheel rims will be increased to two per wheel to improve nighttime visibility.

Seoul City is also considering expanding citizen participation in Ddarungi policy-making. It is reviewing incentives for renting bicycles at recommended rental stations via the Ddarungi app and returning them to stations with insufficient bicycle allocation. The project to install rental stations based on citizen requests through the Ddarungi app, which started this year, will also continue.

Meanwhile, Seoul City continues to promote infrastructure expansion such as bicycle roads. In May this year, the opening of the Cheonggyecheon-ro dedicated bicycle road completed a bike path directly connecting downtown to the Han River. By June next year, a bicycle bridge connecting Cheonggyecheon and Jeongneungcheon will be built, establishing a bicycle road linking the northeastern area including Korea University and Sungshin Women's University to the Han River.

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