Sejong-si to End Service for 'Eoulling 1st Generation' Starting Next Month

A first-generation Eouling bicycle is parked in the storage. Provided by Sejong City

[Asia Economy (Sejong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Sejong City will terminate the operation of the first generation of public bicycles, Eoulling 1st generation (orange color), starting from the 1st of next month.

According to the city on the 15th, Eoulling 1st generation started its service in 2014 with an unmanned rental terminal system for renting and returning, enhancing citizens' transportation convenience until recently.

The number of uses steadily increased from 110,000 in 2015 to 120,000 in 2016, and 190,000 in 2017.

However, since the introduction of the new Eoulling (2nd generation) with QR code system in 2018, the number of users of the 1st generation has noticeably decreased. As of last month, out of the total Eoulling usage of 289,242 cases, the 1st generation usage was only 67 cases, sharply dropping to 0.02% of the total.

In particular, frequent breakdowns due to aging and increased costs for maintaining the unmanned rental terminals have increased the burden of maintaining the 1st generation operation, leading to the city's final decision to terminate the service.

The service termination targets include 735 units of 1st generation Eoulling bicycles and 71 unmanned rental terminal stations.

The daily usage of the 1st generation Eoulling is 3 to 5 cases, so the city judges that the inconvenience to citizens due to the service termination will not be significant.

Accordingly, the city will provide prior notice starting two weeks before the service termination and will proceed step-by-step with the collection and disposal of bicycles deployed in the city according to administrative procedures for service termination and abolition.

The collected bicycles will be repaired and provided to places that have submitted prior demand surveys, and those that cannot be recycled due to aging will be disposed of.

Meanwhile, to operate public bicycles, the city annually expands bicycles and rental stations, currently operating 3,900 bicycles and 686 rental stations.

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