The Nikkei Asian Review reports that: “A high-speed rail line connecting Seoul to Incheon International Airport will be abolished after just four years of service, as the expensive, politically motivated project loses the ridership race to buses.” Incheon is the principal international airport for the world’s fourth largest urban area, Seoul, which has 24 million residents. The Review reported that “Average daily ridership last year totaled only 3,433 passengers, which left 77% of seats unoccupied. Carriages were especially empty during weekday hours.”
The Review contrasted this with the airport volume: “Yet 42.23 million passengers boarded international flights during the first half of 2018, up 14% on the year, transport ministry data shows. … These numbers indicate that air passengers simply did not choose KTX to reach the Seoul-area airport.”
The line had fallen 97 percent short of its projected ridership, according to The Korea Times, which reported that daily ridership was to have reached 490,000 by 2010, yet was only 16,000 last year. This may have been the highest projection error in the history of an industry plagued by such inaccuracies (see: High-Speed Rail: Toward Least-Worst Projections).
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