Suncheon City (Mayor Noh Kwan-gyu) announced that it is preparing to reorganize the city bus routes in order to resolve the problems of inefficiency and overlapping operations on the current city bus routes, the decrease in the number of passengers, traffic congestion in the downtown area, and to create a city friendly to the public, the self, and the elderly.
The city is promoting a reorganization of city bus routes starting in 2023 to enable the transportation disadvantaged to conveniently use public transportation. The main goal of the Suncheon City route reorganization is to operate trunk buses from the downtown area to townships and districts, and to operate branch buses from townships and districts to each village through a local/trunk transfer system.
Currently, Suncheon city buses depart from the downtown garage and travel long distances of 35 to 55 km one way to each town and village in the townships such as Songgwang, Juam, and Nakan. Therefore, there is not enough frequency to operate the buses, and the interval between buses ranges from 1 hour and 30 minutes to 3 hours.
The township and county routes are the most popular routes for the elderly to visit traditional markets, so there are only passengers visiting the lower and upper markets in the morning and evening hours, and there are almost no passengers during the daytime hours. In addition, 3 to 5 routes from the city center to the township and county offices overlap with the same course, so they are operated excessively compared to the number of users.
For these reasons, there has been talk for years that route reorganization is urgent in order to solve the problem of long intervals between buses, which is the number one reason for dissatisfaction with public transportation use, and to satisfy the needs of passengers who want to get to their destinations as quickly as by car by city bus. However, many citizens find it difficult to change the route system, so route reorganization has not been implemented so far.
Currently, Suncheon City is in the process of finalizing a plan to reorganize city bus routes by reflecting the opinions collected through the 1st to 3rd township, township, and dong resident briefing sessions regarding the route reorganization. As a measure for transfers, which are expected to cause the greatest inconvenience and civil complaints, transfer stops in township and dong locations will be replaced with smart shelters equipped with various amenities such as air conditioners and heaters and large seats. Transfer assistants will also be deployed to provide transfer route guidance and assist senior citizens in boarding.
In addition, low-floor buses that are easy to get on and off will be deployed on trunk routes, and small buses that can enter villages will be deployed on branch routes. This will allow residents of remote villages who were unable to use city buses due to the distance to the bus stop to use city buses.
Mayor Roh Gwan-gyu of Suncheon City said, “We believe that the reorganization of city bus routes will become the foundation of the city of Suncheon, which is a large, self-sufficient, and protective city. We are preparing for implementation in the first half of next year,” adding, “We will carefully review it and do our best to minimize inconveniences caused by the route reorganization through sufficient publicity and opinion gathering.”
Economy Queen Reporter Kim Hong-mi / Photo Suncheon City
.
2024-08-24 04:18:29