Seoul Metro Closing Early
The number of passengers has dropped sharply by 40.5%.
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The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 30th that in order to "maintain social distance" for the spread of COVID-19, they decided to close down Seoul Metro one hour early starting April 1, 2020. Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that subway passengers have decreased by 40.5% compared to the previous year for a week since the 23rd of last month when stage 4 of the infectious disease crisis was announced.
Seoul Metro Closing Early
From the 1st of April, the Seoul Subway Lines 1-9 and Ui-Sinseol LRT will shut down one hour early than usual. The last train operation time varies depending on the route and subway station, and the timetable for the change is announced on the website of the operating institution and on each station. Buses, taxis, etc. are operated the same way to secure the right to travel in the middle of the night due to the reduction in subway train operation.
The shortening of the subway operation time is to secure safety. In fact, the quarantine workload increased from 2 to 14 times for Seoul Metro. A city official explained, "It is difficult to carry out safety management tasks such as maintenance of facilities for securing civil safety and improvement of old facilities through the implementation of quarantine services after the quarantine services and train operations are over."
Source：NEWSIS
The safety management, which happens after all trains have stopped operating for the day, takes about 2 hours. Air quality improvement, rail replacement, 5G mobile communication construction as well as 30 other constructions and maintenance are in progress. As most train operations will end around 12 AM instead of 1AM, the working hours for construction and maintenance increased by 1 hour from 2 hours to 3 hours.