South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will designate July 25 through Aug. 10 — a 17-day window — as a "special traffic management period," during which it will roll out a joint interagency summer holiday traffic plan.
To keep travelers safe amid heat waves and heavy rain, the ministry will strengthen underpass monitoring with vehicle-blocking barriers and use intelligent CCTV cameras to watch for slope instability. It will also boost public transit supply by 11 percent to handle peak holiday demand projected at a daily average of about 6.14 million trips, while temporarily opening highway shoulder lanes and inaugurating nine new national road sections.
New openings include the Seoyeongcheon Hi-Pass Interchange and the Independence Hall Interchange on expressways, along with Route 18 between Posan and Seomang (20 kilometers), Route 20 between Maejeon and Geoncheon (15.66 kilometers), and a temporary opening of a 6.06-kilometer stretch of Route 2 between Sinan Aphae and Songgong.
Shoulder lanes will operate across 59 expressway sections spanning 371.62 kilometers.
A total of 234 expressway and national road sections — covering 1,872 kilometers — have been designated as congestion-prone zones for intensive management. Real-time traffic conditions and detour information will be broadcast through mobile apps, electronic road signs and other channels.
Rest-stop amenities will be expanded for drivers, and a range of discount programs tied to regional tourist destinations will also be available.
Travelers will be able to book accommodation directly through the Korail MaaS app, Korail Talk. To ease airport congestion, shuttle bus service at Incheon Airport Terminal 2 will be increased, the number of Smart Pass-dedicated departure gates will grow from three to five, and 9,116 additional temporary parking spaces will be secured.
Safety inspections of road, rail, aviation and maritime infrastructure will be conducted in advance to ensure smooth operations. Forty road sections identified as accident-prone — determined by AI analysis of traffic big data including crash records and vehicle movement information — will be flagged on electronic road signs to alert drivers.
Bus and rail services will increase by 11.1 percent in frequency (37,452 additional trips) and 8.3 percent in seating capacity (about 2.076 million additional seats) compared with normal periods.
Park Jae-soon, director general for transport and logistics at the ministry, urged the public to check traffic and weather conditions before setting out. "Traffic accident risks rise during the summer holiday season due to heavier traffic and concentrated rainfall, so please check congestion and weather information before you leave and pay particular attention to safe driving," he said.
According to the Korea Transport Institute and the Korea Expressway Corporation, an average of about 6.14 million people are expected to travel per day during the special management period, for a total of about 104.33 million trips — up 1.5 percent from last year's daily average of about 6.05 million.
A Korea Transport Institute survey found that 51.5 percent of respondents plan to take a summer vacation, with 86.3 percent of those planning domestic trips and 13.7 percent planning to travel abroad.
The most popular travel window was July 25 through July 31, and the East Sea coast was the top domestic destination, preferred by 26.4 percent of respondents. The survey was conducted via smartphone from June 23 to June 29, covering 10,123 people, with a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 0.97 percentage points.
smh@heraldcorp.com
