Gyeonggi Province "Regrets Seoul City's Introduction of 'Integrated Transfer Commuter Pass'... Let's Form a Metropolitan Area Working-Level Council"

Gyeonggi Provincial Government

Gyeonggi Province stated that Seoul's announcement of the launch plan for the 'Integrated Transfer Commuter Pass' was a unilateral announcement made without prior consultation with neighboring local governments such as Gyeonggi and Incheon. The province emphasized the need to form a working council involving the three local governments and review the introduction plan through this council.

On the 11th, Kim Sang-su, Director of the Gyeonggi Provincial Transportation Bureau, said, "We clearly express our regret over Seoul's unilateral push without prior consultation on the transportation issues of the 26 million metropolitan area," adding, "Transportation issues in the metropolitan area, which shares a single living zone, are a challenging problem that requires joint efforts among the three local governments, not unilateral announcements by a specific local government."

Director Kim continued, "Recently, Seoul unilaterally announced the ‘10-minute revalidation policy’ for Seoul Subway despite unresolved settlement issues between Gyeonggi and Incheon, showing a pattern of disregarding the opinions of Gyeonggi Province and Incheon City regarding metropolitan transportation issues," and stressed, "Seoul must move away from its unilateral policy approach and strengthen the cooperative system with Gyeonggi and Incheon."

He also stated, "Since the introduction of the metropolitan integrated transfer system in 2004, the three local governments have made significant efforts to jointly resolve metropolitan transportation issues," and proposed, "Through a working council led by the transportation directors of the three local governments, we should actively review the introduction plan for the ‘Metropolitan Integrated Transfer Commuter Pass’ system and regularly meet to jointly address other metropolitan transportation issues."

He added, "We hope to jointly resolve various metropolitan transportation issues, including the integrated transfer commuter pass, through the ‘Working Council of the Three Local Governments’ Transportation Departments’," and expressed hope that Seoul and Incheon would actively respond to Gyeonggi Province's proposal.

Director Kim also expressed understanding of Seoul's position in promoting the launch of the ‘Integrated Transfer Commuter Pass’ to alleviate transportation inconveniences for citizens of Gyeonggi, Seoul, and Incheon, saying, "Gyeonggi Province has also been internally reviewing the introduction plan for the integrated transfer commuter pass at the working level to reduce transportation costs for Gyeonggi residents. In this regard, we plan to actively participate in the ‘K-Pass’ project announced by the government and the Metropolitan Transport Commission (Daegwangwi) last August."

The government’s ongoing ‘K-Pass’ project is a policy that reimburses 20-53% of transportation costs to those who use subways and buses more than 21 times a month. Gyeonggi Province plans to actively cooperate with Daegwangwi to ensure the smooth implementation of the ‘K-Pass’ project.

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