The Hangang Bus will resume service on Nov. 1. It has been 34 days since passenger boarding was suspended and shifted to no-passenger trial runs on Sept. 29 due to breakdowns, including just 10 days after official operations began. The Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to deploy two vessels at the piers to prevent cancellations in time for the restart. This is to immediately put a replacement vessel into service if a problem occurs with the vessel scheduled to operate. The city said the Hangang Bus will serve as a new form of waterborne public transportation, but lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Korea are calling for the project to be scrapped.
◇ Service resumes on the 1st of next month… "Reinforced quality with more than 300 runs"
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on the 27th that Hangang Bus service will resume from the first run at 9 a.m. on Nov. 1.
The Hangang Bus is waterborne public transportation that travels a 28.9-kilometer route stopping at seven piers: Magok, Mangwon, Yeouido, Apgujeong, Oksu, Ttukseom, and Jamsil. It made its first departure on Sept. 18.
However, in the 10 days after the first departure, operations were suspended due to breakdowns such as rudder and electrical system problems. In response, on Sept. 29 the city said, "We will temporarily suspend passenger boarding on the Hangang Bus for about a month and switch to no-passenger trial runs to enhance performance and stabilize operations." As before, it would operate without passengers for a total of 14 runs a day, seven in each direction.
The city said that during the trial period, "We completed reinforcement of vessel safety and service quality through training identical to actual operating conditions, including docking and undocking at piers and passing under bridge piers, by conducting about 300 or more repeated runs."
When service resumes, the Hangang Bus will start at 9 a.m., two hours earlier than the original official schedule. Based on arrival times, it will operate 16 times a day on weekdays and weekends at 1 hour and 30 minute intervals until 9:37 p.m.
Park Jin-young, head of the Future Hangang Headquarters at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said, "We will work to make the Hangang Bus a trusted form of waterborne public transportation for ordinary people."
◇ Ruling party: "The project should be scrapped" vs. city: "A new form of waterborne public transportation"
This is not the first time the Hangang Bus project has run into turbulence. Since the project was announced in Mar. 2023, there have been voices of opposition citing a lack of accessibility and business viability. In addition, delays in building the vessels to be deployed on the route led to three postponements of the service start. There is also debate over its role as a commuting option. If you use the regular route from Magok to Jamsil, it takes 127 minutes, which is 52 minutes slower than the original plan.
For these reasons, lawmakers on the National Assembly Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea argue that the Hangang Bus project should be withdrawn. On the 26th, the Democratic Party lawmakers also said they plan to file a complaint against Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on breach of trust charges, claiming the city imposed a financial burden on Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH) in the course of pushing the Hangang Bus project.
They said, "It is a clear act of breach of trust that SH engaged in lending of 87.6 billion won to a private company without securing any collateral," adding, "It is unprecedented to lend such a huge sum without securing even 1 won in collateral."
They continued, "Mayor Oh acknowledged that SH did not secure collateral even as it engaged in lending of 87.6 billion won to Hangang Bus Co., Ltd. (the Hangang Bus operator)," and said, "Mayor Oh should immediately withdraw the hastily and irrationally pushed Hangang Bus project before a bigger accident occurs."
In response, the city called it "political attacks." On the 26th, Deputy Mayor for Political Affairs Kim Byung-min said in a statement regarding the controversy over the 87.6 billion won lending, "It was a legitimate management action following board reporting and resolution and legal consultation." On the matter of setting collateral, he said, "It is a managerial discretion, not a legal obligation," adding, "Branding this as 'breach of trust' disregards legal principles and distorts managerial autonomy."
Kim added, "The Hangang Bus is a public-interest project that will eliminate transportation blind spots, introduce new waterborne public transportation, and enhance citizen convenience and Seoul's competitiveness."