KOTI - Korea Transport institute

In the metropolitan area, long-distance wide-area traffic continues to increase due to population growth and spatial expansion, and as a result, road congestion is increasing in intensity and duration, and there is a shortage of buses and congestion due to an insufficient supply of wide-area buses at peak times. This is a serious situation. Traffic congestion on the road generates many socioeconomic inconveniences such as increased travel time and increased greenhouse gas emissions, which weakens the competitiveness of the metropolitan area. Increasing the supply of wide-area buses in line with commuter traffic has a problem of lowering the operational efficiency of bus carriers due to low operational efficiency at non-peaks. On the contrary, insufficient supply causes inconvenience for public transportation users and encourages the use of private cars. There is a dilemma that results in increased traffic congestion. Therefore, both roads and public transportation need to balance capacity expansion and operational efficiency.
Once the Metropolitan Express Train (GTX, Great Train eXpress) is completed, mobility between regions in the metropolitan area will be greatly improved, and the passage of private cars and wide-area buses will be considerably changed. The congestion of roads and wide-area buses is expected to be alleviated to some extent. However, many housing site development projects, including the third new town, are being promoted as if it were something small, so there is a need for additional measures.
In order to solve the problem of metropolitan wide area transportation, it is necessary to consider the characteristics of metropolitan wide area traffic, various development plans, and environmental changes, and to prepare improvement measures to effectively improve the metropolitan area wide area transportation system and to implement the efficient operation. In other words, it is necessary to establish comprehensive improvement measures for a wide-area transportation system, which combines effective facility supply and efficient operation.
The purpose of this study is to suggest ways to expand road facilities to improve traffic congestion and strengthen competitiveness in the metropolitan area, and to improve the public transportation system to solve the commuting problem of wide areas. To this end, we analyzed the current conditions and diagnosed problems in the metropolitan area such as the analysis of traffic conditions on major roads in the metropolitan area, the analysis of the congestion of wide-area buses, the analysis of the competing time of public transportation, and the comprehensive analysis by major axis. Based on this, we devised ways to improve major arterial road networks, introductions of the shoulder roads, new arterial road networks compared to inter-Korean exchanges, and suggested ways to expand the supply of wide-area buses and to improve the transfer system to increase the capacity of wide-area buses. It is hoped that this research can be the foundation for resolving wide-area traffic shortages in the metropolitan area.