By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter

Glitches marred the newly installed payment system at subway stations and buses in Seoul on Thursday, the first day new transportation measures were implemented.

Bus-users had difficulties in understanding the changed routes and operation schedules due to the lack of preparation for the new system.

Early in the morning, subways and buses in Seoul could not collect fares due to malfunctions of the payment system, which was installed at every station in the capital to make it easier for passengers to transfer to buses.

Subway officials said a data transmission failure caused the glitches. The system began operating normally in the afternoon.

Seoul City allowed all rush-hour passengers to use the subway for free as officials neglected to address the systemic errors immediately.

``We failed to transmit some important data to buses and subways due to heavy online traffic,’’ a city official said. ``It is difficult to estimate how we suffered in losses from the system glitches. It is billions of won.’’

Subway officials said they could not collect fares amounting to 1.2 billion won for several hours while the system was paralyzed.

In bus stations, citizens vented their anger over the changed routes and bus schedules. Most of them came to the stations without enough knowledge of the changes and could not figure out where to take which buses. Some had to take taxies to get to work on time.

A lack of promotion about the new transportation system was evident in many places. Hong Chan-ui, 41, an office worker in Seoul, expected the introduction of the central bus-only lane to make the traffic a lot faster. However, it took him about 40 minutes, 10 minutes more than usual, when he took a bus from the Nokchon station to Noryangjin station in southern Seoul.

The Bus Management System, which was introduced by bus companies to effectively manage the traffic of buses, did not run properly due to a shortage of staff and some systematic problems.

``The streets of Seoul became very colorful with red, green and blue buses. But many citizens are very confused still and don’t know exactly which buses go where,’’ said Kang Sung-min, 29, an office worker who uses subways and buses almost daily.

``Seoul City has promised the new transportation system will be more convenient, but that is all useless if citizens don’t know how to use it.’’

jj@koreatimes.co.kr