A Study on Major Challenges for Korean High-Speed Railway and How to Secure Its Competitive Edge

고속철도의 중점과제와 경쟁력 확보 방안

Korea selected to introduce high-speed railway system from advanced countries in order to accumulate railway technologies and develop exiting domestic logistics system. After many twists and turns, we adopted to introduce France's high-speed railway called 'TGV'. Despite many difficulties along with trials and errors, it is expected that Korean high-speed railway will be brilliantly launched in April 2004, although it has been commissioned for multi-discipline tests. It is forecast that the opening of high-speed railway will bring us the epoch-making development of logistics system. However, what if there are really some problems in the operation of high-speed railway? We cannot consider and highlight only the positive aspects of our own high-speed railway. In terms of many challenging aspects we would face in the future, there would be some matters we must consider and point out in this opportunity. In this regard, the direction for developing high-speed railway stations requires the harmony between profitability and public benefits, which must involve compatibility with other traffice systems and practical policies to secure competitive edges.