Gyeonggi-do to Promote Metropolitan Compatibility for 'Tagless (Contactless) Transportation Payment'

Gyeonggi Province is promoting the compatibility of the contactless bus fare payment system (tagless system) across the Seoul metropolitan area.

Currently, the metropolitan buses in Gyeonggi Province and the urban rail systems in Seoul operate on incompatible systems, causing inconvenience as passengers must use contact-based transportation cards instead of tagless payment to transfer between them.

On the 24th, Gyeonggi Province announced that at the bureau-level working meeting held on the 21st at the provincial government office with Gyeonggi Province, Seoul City, and Incheon City, it proposed the establishment of a "Tagless System Expansion and Technical Compatibility Discussion Organization," which received a positive response.

Poster for the Usage Method of Tagless Pay Conceived by Gyeonggi-do

The tagless system is a convenient payment method that uses wireless communication technology on smartphones instead of physically touching a smartphone or transportation card to a terminal. It was first introduced on metropolitan buses within the province in 2021 and is currently operating on 2,828 metropolitan buses across the province. In April, it will be applied to approximately 950 city bus routes passing through Yongin and Uijeongbu.

Seoul City also began introducing the system on some subway lines such as the Uisinseol Line in September last year and plans to implement it on Seoul Subway Lines 1 to 8 in the second half of next year. Incheon City is promoting the introduction of the system on some metropolitan bus routes, and Korail is reviewing its implementation on the subways it manages.

The problem is that tagless transfers are currently not possible between Gyeonggi Province’s metropolitan buses and Seoul’s Uisinseol Line, where the tagless system has been introduced. Since the systems are not compatible, passengers must physically touch transportation cards to terminals to transfer.

Through this meeting, Gyeonggi Province gained consensus from Seoul and Incheon on improving tagless compatibility issues and decided to hold regular meetings to promote the expansion of the tagless system and improve technical compatibility.

Yoon Tae-wan, head of the Bus Policy Division of Gyeonggi Province, stated, "If compatibility issues are not resolved, the current integrated transfer system could actually cause inconvenience to users. Discussions among metropolitan area local governments and Korail to resolve this are absolutely necessary."

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