KTX Cumulative Passengers Reach '1 Billion'... "A Record 19 Years After Opening"

The cumulative number of KTX passengers is expected to surpass 1 billion this month. This record comes 19 years after its opening in 2004, which means that considering South Korea's population of 50 million, each citizen has used the KTX about 20 times on average.

'Refreshing Connection (Yangsu Cheolgyo)' by Heo Jin. Provided by Korea Railroad Corporation

According to Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) on the 30th, the cumulative number of KTX passengers is expected to exceed 1 billion on the 31st. This milestone comes 19 years and 5 months after the first operation on April 1, 2004.

In particular, the number of KTX passengers has been increasing every year, and the time taken to reach each billion-passenger milestone has been gradually shortening.

For example, the cumulative passenger count of 500 million was reached in September 2015, 11 years and 5 months after opening. It then took 7 years and 11 months to reach 1 billion passengers, which is 3 years and 5 months faster than the time taken to reach 500 million.

This year, the average daily number of KTX passengers is about 226,000, more than three times the approximately 72,000 daily passengers in 2004.

Since its opening until this month, the cumulative operating distance of the KTX is 620 million kilometers. Korea Railroad explained that this is equivalent to running around the Earth's circumference (40,000 km) about 15,500 times.

Previously, Korea Railroad started KTX operations on the Gyeongbu Line (Seoul~Busan) and Honam Line (Yongsan~Mokpo) in 2004, gradually expanding the high-speed rail benefits nationwide.

As a result, KTX is now available on 8 lines and 67 stations nationwide. The number of daily operations on Saturdays is 357, about 2.5 times more than the 142 runs at the initial opening. The train types have also diversified into three kinds: KTX, KTX-Sancheon, and KTX-Eumse.

Provided by Korea Railroad Corporation

The section with the highest usage of high-speed trains is ‘Seoul↔Busan’, with an average of 17,000 passengers daily. This is followed by ‘Seoul↔Daejeon’ and ‘Seoul↔Dongdaegu’. The station with the most passengers is Seoul Station, with 94,000 daily users.

The biggest change in public life brought by the opening of KTX is the increase in ‘long-distance commuting’ users utilizing season tickets.

Last year, the number of season ticket users was 4.04 million, which is 8.7 times higher compared to 467,000 users in the first year of operation. Also, compared to the 3.2-fold increase in daily KTX passengers during the same period, the growth rate of season ticket users is much steeper.

The section with the highest number of season ticket users is ‘Seoul↔Cheonan-Asan’, accounting for 17.1% of the total.

Based on this, Korea Railroad emphasizes that KTX plays a role as a backbone transportation network supporting regional balanced development, such as metropolitan area expansion and the relocation of public institutions to local areas.

Han Moon-hee, President of Korea Railroad, said, “Surpassing 1 billion cumulative KTX passengers is a precious achievement made together with the people and also a record of South Korea’s growth. Korea Railroad will continue to strive to provide safe and smart railway services to the public.”

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