City to remove subway commercials for safety

By Kim Se-jeong

Seoul Metro, the operator of subway lines No. 1 through 4, said Friday that it will remove advertisements from platform doors to ensure public safety.

“Passenger safety is a priority for us,” said the operator. “It is a necessary precaution in case an emergency happens inside the subway train and the passengers should evacuate.”

Such doors already exist, but the authorities say they are not enough. The same measure has been taken with lines No. 5 through 8 recently.

According to the plan, 1,076 commercials will be removed, costing 20 billion won.

Doors of subway platforms in Seoul were set up to keep people from accidentally falling onto train tracks or attempting suicide, and they successfully did their job.

Emergency evacuation doors are essential in a subway station as they can prevent a massive number of casualties in the case of an accident.

Seoul Metro said it hasn’t secured enough funds to complete the project and asked the city and central government for financial assistance.

“It is a costly process,” it said. “We can’t manage alone.”

It also said the financial picture is already bad, and “with the advertisement removed, we’ll see our revenue go down further. We don’t want the quality of service to be affected by this.”

Subway operators in Seoul have been suffering a deficit for years, mainly caused by free ridership guaranteed for the elderly. Amid growing pressure to make money from the city government and central government, its staff went on strike recently.

The subway operators insist they need help from the city to make up for the loss.