A New Day for Seoul (and Korea's) Transit System

I've always thought of Seoul's subways as a real joy to be on. They are clean, fast, efficient(more or less) and CHEAP. Buses, on the other hand, are a bit of a mystery to me. I take one bus regularly, but that's it. taxis, however, are plentiful, cheap and (once you know a little Korean) pretty easy to use.

Now things are getting a lot easier and logical. As of today (July 1st) rates will be based on distance traveled rather than number of rides. This makes sense as it always irked me when you had to pay again to transfer from one bus to another or from the bus to subway (this doesn't happen in Vancouver). The new system just has you pay for the length of each little trip. As well, my phone will be able to house my T-Money so I don't need to carry change or fish around for my wallet or 'stored-value' ticket. (It can even be used in convenience stores and cabs soon! And carry up to 500,000 won, or about 435USD)There's also a color-coding scheme to the buses which may or may not make things easier. Unless they have little maps on the buses I think most foreigners will find the new system about a confusing as the old, but a lot of that has to do with the language and familiarity with a city/district that covers many, many square kms.

Check out articles on all this stuff here, here and here.