Week 1, Day 5

Some house keeping items first.

Below is the URL for the KBS news coverage of SCC CheongJu. Much thanks goes to a SCC team member from IBM Korea.

http://mail.kbs.co.kr/servlet/crinity?paction=download&ptype=STORAGE&seq=2351419&checkid=ZGRlNjU4ZmJmZWM1NDhiZjcxMWM4MDU3Zjg5ZTk2YTk=

SCC Team was planning to take a bus to City Hall this morning, but we copped out because we were clueless as how to. When we arrived at City Hall, we were informed of an existing guide. I was expecting a folded sheet, but it was actually a 1/4 inch thick book !!  Anyway, we will need to do some better advance planning in order for us to ride a bus to work soon.

Today, we conducted 3 external meetings:

1. An expert from The Korea's Railroad Research Institute who came from a city 2 hours away. He shared a story with the team which was quite appropriate. When he arrived at the CheongJu Express Bus terminal, he wanted to take a local bus to City Hall. However, he could NOT figure it out, so he took a taxi instead. He gave us some valuable insight around how rail projects are funded and approved along with high level cost estimates. Here are 4 potential new mass transit options.

2. The second meeting was with a Green Citizens Advisory Group. A key topic was around usage of bicycles or lack there of. The group felt that the City size was small enough that bicycles should and can be used effectively. However, there are numerous challenges including illegally parked cars and outdated, dangerous bike paths. I took a walk around a small business district and quickly found some examples below. The first photo shows a white car illegally parked at a crosswalk. The second photo shows two steel columns on a bike path (I just hope no one rides their bike when it's dark). Also, note that the sidewalk is split between cyclists and pedestrians which can be dangerous for both as well.

The next topic was on the bus system. We asked about the their bus riding experience. They thought the bus stations with monitors displaying upcoming buses with ETA was really nice. That information can also be accessed via a Smartphone which was pretty cool. But, monitors are not installed in ALL stations especially for those with low ridership outside of the city. I wondered if senior citizens in the rural areas have Smartphones....

Here is another interesting story. As I was taking these pictures, I asked a lady, who was waiting for a bus, some questions. Initially, she probably thought I was a little weird. Anyway, she explained that the bus fare is about $1 to go anywhere within the Bus Routing System which was quite cheap. If you had to pay cash, it will be about 20% more. Clearly, cost of a bus ticket is not an issue, but this transportation mode represents only 11% of total.

I then asked if she can explain which bus to take in order to go to downtown. She tried, but I couldn't understand so I politely gave up. As I was standing there, a couple came to the bus station and they realized the next bus was over 50 minutes in waiting time. They quickly flagged down a taxi and sped away. I recalled from the meeting with the Taxi Association leaders which stated that taxi serves 40% of total transportation needs. So, my math says that the balance of 49% is by private cars.

The third meeting was with the City's Transportation Officials to "float" some of our ideas. Most of the discussion was around Bus Routes. On the left side of the chart below is the current routing system which results in less transfer needs while the right is a Hub & Spoke model which may increase the need of transfers but shorter time to destination along with simplicity.

Note that I didn't mention anything about food today. That's because I had a real bad indigestion which led to me skipping the team dinner and ended up walking around the street. So, no pictures of food today.

Well, I better catch some Z.