GK:3.4.1 Advances in Transportation and Transportation Issues
Geography of Korea: III. Production and Consumer Space > 4. Transportation and Telecommunications> 1) Advances in Transportation and Transportation Issues
1) Advances in Transportation and Transportation Issues
Korea was in the past lax in its road building. Frequent foreign invasions of the peninsula had the effect in Korea of contributing to the logic that constructing roads over the country’s rough terrain would only facilitate foreign incursions. The major roads constructed in the early years of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), rather than to develop commerce or out of a need to for trade, were built largely for administrative and military reasons. During the period of Japanese occupation (1910–1945) a national rail transport network began to emerge with the laying out of a primary X-shaped railway network, and with this came also the beginnings of inter-regional exchanges. With the 1960s, along with the growth of the national economy, conditions favored the developments in short-distance transport, with a focus on passenger and freight transportation. The late 1960s saw the construction of the Gyeongin (Seoul-Incheon) and Gyeongbu (Seoul-Busan) Expressways. At 428 kilometers in length, the Gyeongbu Expressway, which was begun in February 1968 and completed in July 1970, is the country’s longest expressway, traversing the length of the country and connecting the nation’s two urban centers of Seoul and Busan.
The completion of the Gyeongbu Expressway made South Korea a “one-day country” (the national territory could now be traversed in a single day) and put in place the land transport system required for industrialization. The 1970s saw the completion of the Honam (Daejeon to Suncheon), Namhae (Yeongam to Busan), Yeongdong (Incheon to Gangneung), and Donghae (Busan to Sokcho) Expressways, as well as construction of the first lines of the Seoul subway system—built to alleviate growing traffic congestion problems in the capital. This was followed by the construction of subway systems in Busan, Daejeon, and Daegu, again to help with the increasing traffic congestion in those cities.
In the 1980s, with the completion of the 88 Olympic Expressway (Damyang to Daegu), Jungbu (Central) Expressway (Daejeon to Hanam), Jungbu naeryuk (Central Inland) Expressway (Changwon to Namyangju), and Seohaean (West Coast) Expressway (Muan to Seoul), the expressway network became the country’s transportation backbone. The 1980s was an era of rapidly increasing car ownership in Korea and with greater transport demands the decade was also characterized by the construction of alternative routes and the expansion of existing ones. The latter part of the 1990s was also a period of highway network expansion, including the expansion of the Seohaean Expressway (now connecting Incheon and Mokpo), the completion of the Jungang Expressway (Daegu to Chuncheon), as well as the Busan-Daegu and Daejeon-Jinju highways, such that even once neglected regions became linked up with the transportation network. From its first highway, the Gyeongbu Expressway, South Korea now has thirty-one national expressways covering a total of some 4000 kilometers. In the 2000s, work was begun on the high-speed KTX rail network, and in 2004 the portion of the Seoul-Busan high-speed line from Seoul to East Daegu began service with the trains reaching speeds of 305 km/hr. In 2010, the entire Seoul-Busan high-speed rail line was completed, while the Honam high-speed rail line was slated for completion in 2014.
South Korea’s airline industry has its origins immediately after liberation with the formation of Korea International Airline Company (Daehan gukje hanggongsa) in 1946, becoming the Korea National Airline Company (Daehan gungmin hanggongsa; hereafter KNA) in 1948. But losses sustained from insufficient passenger demand and other factors led in 1962 to the KNA’s acquisition by the government, which then ran it as the Korean Airlines Corporation (Daehan hanggongsa). However, with the continuing lack of passenger demand the government was unable to run the company at a profit and ended by selling it in 1969 to the Hanjin Company and so Korean Airlines (Daehan hanggong) was begun. After this initial period of development, in 1988 South Korea’s second civilian airline, Asiana Airlines, was launched, introducing a competitive carrier for the country’s domestic routes, and starting in 2003 with the launching of Hansung Airlines, low-cost domestic carriers began to make an appearance and now include Jeju Air, Jin Air, Air Busan, Eastar Jet, and T’Way Airlines (a relaunching of Hansung Airlines). For 2012, air passengers in South Korea, to include both departures and arrivals, totaled about 92 million, with about 39 million, or 40 percent, passing through the country’s Incheon International Airport, about 19 million through Gimpo Airport in Seoul, 18 million through Jeju Airport, and 9 million through Gimhae Airport. The country’s economic development has meant a rise in personal incomes an increase in preference for high-speed transport and domestic aviation customers. Meanwhile, public transport is also changing with the expansion of domestic routes and qualitative improvements in service.
Let us now look at the state of transport in South Korea by automobile ownership rates and transport use by mode. In terms of car ownership, the mid-1980s saw a sharp rise in the country’s car ownership rate, reaching one million owners by 1985, 10 million by 1997, and 19 million by 2012. Car owners per 1000 population also saw a continual increase, with about 50 per 1000 in 1988, 100 by 1992, and more than 200 only four years later in 1996, and finally about 370 per 1000 population as of 2012, or about a 23-fold increase in the space of thirty years (figure 3-20).
Looking at transport usage broken down by mode, in terms of passenger use for the year 2010, road transport saw the highest use, accounting for 74 percent of passenger transport. This was followed by the subway, rail, air, and ship. In terms of freight transport, road use accounted for the highest at some 80 percent, followed by ship and then rail, while air transport only accounted for a fraction of the freight moved. Comparing these recent ratios of transport use by mode to past averages, we find that rail and subway have seen a slight rise in use ratio, while roads have seen a relative drop. For freight, the opposite is the case, with more recent statistics showing a slight rise in the ratio of road use and a drop in rail use.
| Passengers | Freight | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| road | subway | rail | air | ship | road | ship | rail | air | |||
| 1990 | 144,877 (100%) | 127,219 (87.8%) | 11,016 (7.6%) | 11,016 (7.6%) | 11,016 (7.6%) | 11,016 (7.6%) | 3371 (100%) | 2151 (63.8%) | 639 (19%) | 579 (17.2%) | 2 (0.1%) |
| 2000 | 135,153 (100%) | 104,106 (77%) | 22,352 (16.5%) | 8373 (6.2%) | 225 (0.2%) | 97 (0.1%) | 6763 (100%) | 4962 (73.4%) | 1345 (19.9%) | 452 (6.7%) | 4 (0.1%) |
| 2010 | 130,149 (100%) | 96,464 (74.1%) | 22,731 (17.5%) | 10,609 (8.2%) | 202 (0.2%) | 143 (0.1%) | 7780 (100%) | 6200 (79.7%) | 1190 (15.3%) | 392 (5%) | 3 (0%) |
