Seoul Metro is Seoul’s leading metro company, transporting up to 3 billion people annually. However, future ridership is expected to plummet due to an aging and shrinking population with one of the fastest declining ...Seoul Metro is Seoul’s leading metro company, transporting up to 3 billion people annually. However, future ridership is expected to plummet due to an aging and shrinking population with one of the fastest declining total fertility rates in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 accelerated this phenomenon. On the contrary, the e-commerce and home delivery industries have developed significantly since COVID-19. Seoul’s current logistics infrastructure cannot handle it. Under the inflection point of declining passenger transportation demand and increasing urban logistics demand, urban rail operators need new growth engines. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the introduction of an UULS (underground urban logistics system) that transports parcels instead of passengers through urban railways. If the UULS becomes a reality, it can be expected to secure scarce logistics land in cities, protect the environment and prevent traffic congestion by operating eco-friendly mass urban transportation, and acquire new revenue sources for urban rail operators. The UULS’s B/C ratio is 1.32. The sensitivity analysis shows that the ratio is above 1 in most cases where the unit cost of transportation is not significantly reduced.展开更多
基金the Ministry of Land,Infrastructure and Transport and Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement(22HCLP-C163194-02)。
文摘Seoul Metro is Seoul’s leading metro company, transporting up to 3 billion people annually. However, future ridership is expected to plummet due to an aging and shrinking population with one of the fastest declining total fertility rates in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 accelerated this phenomenon. On the contrary, the e-commerce and home delivery industries have developed significantly since COVID-19. Seoul’s current logistics infrastructure cannot handle it. Under the inflection point of declining passenger transportation demand and increasing urban logistics demand, urban rail operators need new growth engines. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the introduction of an UULS (underground urban logistics system) that transports parcels instead of passengers through urban railways. If the UULS becomes a reality, it can be expected to secure scarce logistics land in cities, protect the environment and prevent traffic congestion by operating eco-friendly mass urban transportation, and acquire new revenue sources for urban rail operators. The UULS’s B/C ratio is 1.32. The sensitivity analysis shows that the ratio is above 1 in most cases where the unit cost of transportation is not significantly reduced.
