THE WORLD'S LARGEST METRO SYSTEM WILL SOON BE IN SEOUL: MASSIVE CONSTRUCTION PLANS FOR SEOUL AND FIVE OTHER MAJOR CITIES

To ease rapidly increasing congestion due to rising car traffic, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) in South Korea in 1988 agreed to a comprehensive programme to expand its metro system to a length of 280km. Under this plan, 160km of new track were to be laid, of which 84km had been opened by 1996 and another 61km should be finished by the end of 1998. Korean National Railways (KNR) is building 69km of new lines to link Seoul to its nearby new satellite cities. In 1997, the SMG announced a third phase of metro construction, with plans to build 120km of additional lines between 1998 and 2005. At present, there are four lines, with nearly 132km of routes and 113 stations. Seoul's buses already use contactless smart cards for fare payment, and this system will soon be extended to the metro. Pusan is the only other South Korean city to have a metro as yet. Its Line 1 has 32.5km of route and 34 stations; by 2002, the metro will have three lines with 101km of routes. The third city to have a metro will be Taegu, whose first stage is due to open in Summer 1998 with 27.6km of line. The other South Korean cities which will have metros are Inchon, Kwang-Ju and Taejon.