The Han River bus will resume service at 9 a.m. on Nov. 1. It comes 34 days after passenger boarding was halted and switched to no-passenger trial runs due to breakdowns and other reasons on Oct. 9, just 10 days after official service began on Sept. 29. It also turned out that there were three collisions during the trial runs of the Han River bus. The Seoul city government said it will take steps to prevent the same type of accident from recurring.
The Seoul city government held a briefing at Seoul City Hall on the 31st about the resumption of Han River bus operations and stated accordingly.
The Han River bus will operate from 9 a.m. to 9:37 p.m. on Nov. 1. The start time is two hours earlier than before. The Han River bus will run 16 times a day at 1 hour and 30 minute intervals on both weekdays and weekends.
The Han River bus route consists of seven in total from Magok to Jamsil. It runs back and forth along the 28.9 km section of Magok–Mangwon–Yeouido–Apgujeong–Oksu–Ttukseom–Jamsil. Fares are 3,000 won for adults, 1,800 won for teenagers, and 1,100 won for children. Climate Companion Card users can pay an additional 5,000 won per month to ride unlimited for a month.
The Seoul city government will deploy two vessels per trip and assign a standby vessel at all times. If there is a problem with the vessel scheduled to operate, a replacement will be deployed immediately to keep service running. This method will be used through March next year, after which express routes for commuting will be added to increase operations to 32 times a day.
Ahead of the service resumption, the Seoul city government ran the Han River bus more than 300 times without passengers for about 30 days starting on Sept. 29. It operated daily as before, but without carrying passengers. The move came after a series of minor and major problems.
According to the Seoul city government, there were three collisions during this period. On Oct. 8, there was a collision between vessels during docking training, and on the 17th of the same month, one hit a buoy. On the 20th, a vessel collided with a pier. As a result, part of a vessel's outer plate was damaged. The Seoul city government said they were minor accidents and that all measures had been completed.
Previously, lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Korea on the Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee claimed that signs had been found that the Seoul city government concealed accidents that occurred during the trial run period. On the 29th, they said, "The Seoul city government received reports about the (Han River bus) accidents, but instead of disclosing and addressing them transparently, it issued a directive to 'not leak externally,' and when we requested the accident records, the city has yet to respond." They also called for the disclosure of closed-circuit (CC) TV footage and other materials containing the circumstances, the facts, and the accident scenes.