Evening ridership at 11 major stations totals 697,844 over Friday and Saturday; Halloween night alone draws 356,364 riders, up 32.5% from prior Saturday; Hongik University Station leads with 94,040 riders as Itaewon Station sees 2.4 times prior-week traffic
Evening subway ridership at major entertainment districts in Seoul — including Itaewon and the Hongik University area — jumped 17.5 percent over the prior week during the Halloween weekend, Seoul Metro announced Tuesday.
Particularly striking was the surge at Itaewon Station on Halloween itself, where ridership reached 2.4 times the prior Saturday's figure.
Seoul Metro said combined boardings and alightings at 11 major stations during evening hours — 6 p.m. to midnight — over Friday and Saturday totaled 697,844.
That was up 17.5 percent from the same two days the prior week, Oct. 23 and 24, when the figure stood at 594,160.
Friday's count of 341,480 represented only a modest 5.0 percent increase over the prior Friday, but Halloween night on Saturday drew 356,364 riders — a 32.5 percent jump from the prior Saturday.
The surge was most pronounced around Itaewon. Boardings and alightings at Itaewon Station on Saturday reached 38,953, roughly 2.4 times the prior week's 16,338. That figure also represented an 86.6 percent increase from Halloween last year, when 20,877 riders used the station on Oct. 31, 2025.
Nearby Noksapyeong Station recorded 10,703 riders, up 94.8 percent from the prior week, while Hangang-jin Station logged 10,512, a 35.2 percent increase — reflecting a broad concentration of crowds across the Itaewon area.
Hongik University Station posted the highest single-day ridership among the 11 stations surveyed, with 94,040 riders on Saturday — up 35.8 percent from the prior week and 16.7 percent from a year earlier. An additional 75,297 riders used the station on Friday, bringing the two-day total to 169,337.
Other major commercial districts also saw gains. Konkuk University Station recorded 50,387 riders on Saturday, up 33.8 percent from the prior week, while Hapjeong Station drew 46,627, a 29.3 percent increase. Seongsu Station counted 37,324 riders, Gangnam Station 37,134 and Myeong-dong Station 30,684.
Year-on-year comparisons showed mixed results, however, largely because Halloween fell on a Friday last year but on a Saturday this year. Friday's ridership was down 12.0 percent from the same weekday a year ago, while Saturday's was up 18.6 percent.
Seoul Metro deployed additional safety personnel at stations expected to see heavy crowds and actively managed congestion throughout the weekend. At Itaewon Station on Saturday, four train sets on both inbound and outbound lines ran as non-stop pass-throughs from 11:47 p.m. until the end of service.
"We saw ridership concentrate heavily at specific stations and during specific time slots," said Ma Hae-geun, head of Seoul Metro's operations division. "We will closely analyze boarding and alighting trends and passenger flow patterns at major stations so we can respond proactively to large crowds during major events."
seouldream01@heraldcorp.com
