[Metro24] The 'Money-Eating Hippo' Incheon City Bus Semi-Public Operation System

Incheon City is facing a dilemma over the semi-public operation system for city buses. While it cannot ignore the management difficulties of city buses, which serve as the "common people's transportation," the budget for the semi-public operation system has been rapidly increasing every year, causing considerable concern.

Incheon’s financial support for the semi-public operation system, which was 43 billion KRW in 2010 when it was first introduced, surged nearly sixfold to 265 billion KRW last year. However, there are doubts about whether Incheon City properly reviews the transportation deficits of bus companies before providing the semi-public operation budget. This is because the labor costs of transportation workers, which account for more than 60% of the standard transportation cost?the criterion for financial support?have risen too much.

While most local governments, including Seoul, have either frozen wages or kept wage increases low for transportation workers, Incheon City has been criticized for increasing wages by more than 25% over the past four years according to labor-government agreements, thereby increasing its own budget burden.

Incheon City plans to expand the semi-public operation system to metropolitan buses in the second half of this year. This move was prompted by the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, which worsened the management difficulties of bus companies, leading to reduced metropolitan bus operations and route cancellations. Either way, the city’s financial burden is expected to increase further.

However, despite the increased spending, the quality of service experienced by Incheon citizens has not improved. The number of complaints about Incheon city buses has been rising every year: 7,729 cases in 2020, 8,527 in 2021, and 9,108 last year. Although citizens’ taxes have been used to raise bus drivers’ wages, there are inevitable criticisms that their friendliness and passenger satisfaction have not correspondingly improved.

There is another reason to closely examine Incheon’s semi-public operation system. Currently, nine Incheon bus companies participating in the system have been acquired by a single private equity fund management firm, raising concerns that the semi-public operation subsidies funded by citizens’ taxes might be used as a means for the private equity fund to secure profits. This is why the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has launched an investigation into the private equity funds that have acquired city buses.

We hope that the upcoming public transportation policy forum in Incheon on the 9th will properly address the problems of the city bus semi-public operation system.

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