The K-Pass, a public transportation card that refunds a certain percentage of usage fees, has surpassed 3 million users within 10 months of its launch.
According to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, the K-Pass, launched last May, exceeded 3 million users on February 26th, marking its 10th month.
The K-Pass, operated by the MTC, refunds a certain percentage of expenditures the following month when using public transportation more than 15 times a month, up to a maximum of 60 times (maximum 2 times per day). It is currently available in 210 basic local governments nationwide.
According to the MTC, K-Pass users received an average monthly refund of 18,000 won, or 26.6% of their average monthly public transportation expenses of 68,000 won last year. Young adults (30% refund rate), who have a higher refund rate than general users (20%), received an average of 20,000 won per month, and low-income earners (53.3% refund rate) received 37,000 won. Since January, multi-child household benefits have been added to the K-Pass, allowing households with two children to receive a 30% refund on public transportation expenses, and those with three or more children to receive a 50% refund.
User satisfaction has also been high. In a survey conducted in November last year, 92.4% of 13,000 users responded that they were satisfied with the K-Pass. After the introduction of the K-Pass, the average monthly public transportation usage increased by 6.3 times, from 26.4 times to 32.7 times.
Each metropolitan local government is launching customized K-Passes with differentiated benefits by investing local government budgets. Currently, customized K-Passes are being implemented in six metropolitan local governments, including the Gyeonggi Pass, Incheon I-Pass, Busan Dongbaek Pass, Sejong Eung Pass, Gwangju G-Pass, and Gyeongnam Pass, and are being promoted in Ulsan Metropolitan City.
Kang Hee-up, Chairman of the MTC, said, “The K-Pass has established itself as a representative policy to reduce the public transportation cost burden of the people. We will closely discuss with local governments and related organizations to discover customized K-Pass projects for local governments.”
Currently, the K-Pass can be used with 36 types of cards issued by 12 card companies. The MTC announced that it plans to improve the K-Pass application and website this month to expand user convenience.
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