South Korea plans to expand its bullet train network in an effort to accelerate cross-country transportation and promote balanced regional development, officials said Wednesday.
Under a blueprint for the Korea Train Express (KTX), major cities will be connected by the high-speed train network by 2020, making it possible for people to travel from one place of the country to another within two hours, the government said.
The government plans to complete the construction of the high-speed railway section linking the country's southern port city of Busan and Daegu, 302 kilometers southeast of Seoul, in November. The segments going through Daegu and Daejeon, 164km south of Seoul, will be opened in 2014.
Currently, high-speed trains run on conventional railway tracks in those sections.
South Korea will seek to complete the construction of the 182km-long, high-speed railway linking Osong, about 100 kilometers south of Seoul, and Kwangju, 330 kilometers south of the capital, by 2014.
KTX trains will also run on a conventional railway from Seoul to Incheon International Airport, the main gateway to South Korea, from 2012.
In addition, the government plans to straighten the conventional railways under construction or in operation in a bid to raise the maximum speed of trains up to 230km per hour.
When the projects are completed, daily train users are expected to reach 770,000 in 2025, up from 310,000 in 2007. The projects are also expected to boost regional development and generate about 2.3 million new jobs by 2020,
the government estimated.
The government, meanwhile, said that it plans to develop a next-generation bullet train that can travel at a speed of 430km per hour in
a bid to make inroads into the global market.