In two years, people in Busan will be able to ride the city railroad, often called a subway, with QR codes instead of paper tickets. The paper ticket, which has been used constantly since the first operation of the railroad in 1985, will disappear forever from Busan from that moment. 

On January 10th, Busan Transportation Corporation (BTC) announced that it will introduce an Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system based on QR codes from January 2024. According to Busan Transportation, the core of this project, which will cost about 16.1 billion won, is installing the facilities on railroads when passengers bring up the QR code on their smartphones.

The BTC decided to introduce the project as the utilization rate of paper tickets rapidly decreased. In the situation in which the number of passengers using deferred payment transportation cards increases, and the city railroad can be boarded with smartphones, there is no reason to persist with paper tickets. According to the BTC, the utilization rate of paper tickets is less than 5%.

However, some people express their concerns regarding the project. People such as the elderly and the disabled may suffer from inconvenience in using this service. In fact, in early days of the government's introduction of the QR pass in response to COVID-19, it was also argued that it was difficult for aged people. Thinking of our society turning to the aging society, this concern should be taken seriously. According to the National Information Society Agency, the level of four vulnerable groups (senior citizen, farmers, fishermen, disabled person, low-income group, etc)' digital information utilization is less than 75% of the general public. In particular, by age, the digital information utilization level of the elderly people over 70 years old was only 29.7% of the general level.

An anonymous official of BTC said, "This is a change meeting expectations of the mobile-centered consumers' utilization pattern. Before the complete introduction of QR code, we will make sure to use the paper ticket at the same time.”

By Hong Yun-Wu, Reporter

Translated by Lee Su-Hyun, Reporter