Seoul Introduces World’s First Tagless Subway System

Passengers holding T-money rechargeable transportation cards pass through a turnstile without tapping their cards on it to pay a charge at a subway station in Seoul on Sept. 6, 2023, as the automatic payment service was introduced to ease congestion during rush hour. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Wednesday introduced a tagless fare payment system at 12 subway stations on the Ui-Sinseol Light Rail Transit (excluding Bomun Station) in collaboration with transportation card issuer Tmoney Co.

This marks the world’s first introduction of a tagless system in a subway network.

The term ‘tagless’ refers to a system that enables passengers to pass through subway ticket gates without the need to tag transportation cards.

An antenna device positioned above the ticket gate receives passenger information via Bluetooth and automatically processes payments.

Originally slated for introduction on Aug. 1, the implementation was delayed due to the time required for the Korea Communications Commission to review the legal framework.

To pass through the tagless gate, passengers must first install the Mobile T-Money application and then activate the tagless system and Bluetooth.

If they already have the application installed, they need to update it to enable the tagless function.

The tagless service is seamlessly integrated with Mobile T-money.

Consequently, once passengers have boarded the subway using the tagless system at Ui-Sinseol line stations, they can disembark by tagging their Mobile T-money on the gates at transfer stations (Sinseoldong Station on subway lines No. 1 and No. 2, Sungshin Women’s University Station on subway line No. 4).

Tagless gates are larger than standard ticket gates, with an approximate height of 2 meters. The average width of tagless gates is also wider compared to regular ticket gates.

While typical ticket gates are about 60 centimeters wide, tagless gates have a width of about 1 meter, providing greater convenience for passengers with strollers or wheelchairs when using the subway.

M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)