People Benefit from Extra Fee Waiver for Subway Reboarding: City Gov’t

SEOUL, July 21 (Korea Bizwire) — Around 30,000 people benefit every day from a new policy in Seoul that waives extra fees for reboarding the subway within 10 minutes after exiting.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Metro, the total number of reboarding cases from July 1 to 16 reached 503,200, averaging 31,450 cases daily.

Reboarding accounted for only 0.20 percent of all daily boardings during the said period.

Seoul Metro, the operator of the subway service in Seoul, expects losses of 13.2 billion won (US$10.2 million) per year due to the new policy, assuming each passenger begins paying 1,400 won for the subway in October.

“It was something citizens should not have had to pay, and it is only reasonable that we cover the incurred loss,” said an official at the city government.

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