hankyoreh

South Chungcheong Province

By Jeon Jin-sik, South Chungcheong Province correspondent

“Can you give me a ride to community center with all these please?”

It was 7 am and monsoon rains were pouring in Mungok Village in South Chungcheong Province’s Seocheon County. Kim Soon-hee, 73, was trying to load a sack full of steamed corn that she planned to sell at Gunsan market in North Jeolla Province. “A taxi will be coming to community center at 7:30” Kim lost her husband last year and lost her house to a fire, but she was strong. Despite all the unfortunate events, she has worked hard to grow corn. This was her first day to sell the corn from this year’s first harvest.

The local elderly people who have trouble moving were gathered at the community center and were waiting for the taxi. “More than a dozen people used this taxi to go to Pangyo traditional market last time,” said local villager Kim Chang-ha, 70, with a big laugh. He continued, “We can’t live without this Hope Taxi. Otherwise it would take more than one hour for elderly people like me to walk to Pangyo [about 4km away].”

Seocheon County’s Hope Taxi program, which began its service on June 3, has been applauded by local residents, especially elderly living in remote rural areas. The taxi brings hope to elderly people who live so far away that no buses reach their village. Mungok village, with 80 residents living in 50 households, is one of the most remote regions in Seocheon County. Local residents must go over two hills in order to reach Pangyo town from their village.

Village head Han Sang-ik, 70, said, “In the past we had no choice but to walk on icy roads in winter, and along hot mountain paths in summer, as that was the only way to go anywhere. Because the roads here are quite narrow and meandering, buses cannot come here to pick us up.” Shin Kyung-ja, 73, said, “As I get older, I have more problems with my back and my knees, which means I need to see a doctor more often. We’re really fortunate to have the Hope Taxi here in the village, as it makes it a lot easier to go to hospitals.”

The Hope Taxi is not only comfortable but also a good cheap way of making short journeys to nearby areas. A one-way trip to Seocheon County only costs 1,100 won (about US$1) for one person, which is equivalent to one-way bus fare. The fare to Pangyo is even less: it is only 100 won (about 9 cents) regardless of the number of passengers per ride. This is much cheaper than call-taxi services, which would cost 11,000 won to Seocheon and 6,000 won to Pangyo. The remaining amount of the discounted fares is paid by the County Office every month to the taxi drivers through the heads of each village.

Park Yuk-gun, another local resident, said, “I usually go to Pangyo town center to see a doctor for my back, but today I am going to Seocheon County center to see an optometrist. It was almost impossible without the Hope Taxi service, provided by the County Office.” The 75-year-old lady was wearing a flower-printed hat and a pair of sunglasses. She said she walked for half an hour from her home to the community center to catch the Hope Taxi.

It turned out that Mungok village residents used the Hope Taxi service the most among the 16 villages that introduced the service at the same time. Over the last month, there were 46 rounds of the taxi service made, carrying 156 passengers in total, which means 3.39 passengers on average for each trip. This shows the need for this type of transportation for the elderly in rural areas. They needed cheaper, more accessible transportation and the Hope Taxi was the perfect solution.

The Hope Taxi is run according to the schedule of a local market that operates once every five days. On the day when the market is open, there are normally more than 10 people waiting at the community center, so the taxi makes several trips to transport the residents.

Oh Hyuk-chul, Hope Taxi driver at Mungok Village, is another key person who contributed to the success of the Hope Taxi program. Although he is only in principle supposed to take passengers from the community center, he actually drives his taxi to each local resident who has difficulty in moving and help them get on his taxi. Oh, 57, said, “Driving this Hope Taxi for the elderly in this village makes me think of my parents, as they’re in their 90s too. I just can’t let the elderly people go home alone with heavy luggage”. Oh is also known for telling some funny story during his drive.

The Hope Taxi project was one of the pledges made by Seocheon County Governor Na So-yeol in his 2010 election campaign. However, there were several big obstacles preventing him from keeping his promise. A problem came from the fact that the Passenger Transport Service Act had to be followed when enacting an ordinance. The National Election Committee (NEC) and South Chungcheong Province Government pointed out that subsidizing taxis according to the Passenger Transport Service Act can be considered as providing donations, since the taxis are not categorized as public transit. This would be a violation of the election act. This was the main reason why other local governments had also lost the momentum in pushing forward similar ideas. It therefore seemed as if the same problem might hinder Seocheon County’s Hope Taxi project.

Jung Hae-min, an officer in charge of transit at Seocheon County Government, has changed the approach to promoting the project. He suggested changing the basic law related to the service to the Local Government Act. The Local Government Act (article 9 section 2 clause 2) stipulates the local government’s duty to improve the welfare of local residents. In other words, its intention is not to subsidize the individual taxi drivers but rather to improve public transit in the rural villages. Because the villages are remote and roads are narrow, it was almost impossible to operate rural bus services, which made the villagers go to neighboring villages to take buses or to use expensive call-taxi services.

“The focus was to improve welfare by providing more accessible and cheaper transit. We were told ‘this is not against the regulation’ by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport and the NEC. We also requested Ministry of Government Legislation to double check, and we managed to receive some positive feedback as this is not direct financial support to private transit operators”.

Eventually, an ordinance supporting the project was passed, and a budget of 50 million won was allocated. The local government then carefully monitored and recorded the movements of local residents throughout 22 villages from the end of last year to this March in order to plan the most effective transport routes for each time and day.

The results of the research showed that most of the villagers were over 65 and the most popular destinations were town or county centers where markets and hospitals are clustered. The research also found that villagers usually went to hospitals during the week and to markets on weekends. There were 491 rounds of the Hope Taxi services in June alone for 1,237 local residents, covering 5 towns and 16 villages.

The Hope Taxi contributes to improving not only the welfare of the elderly, but also the county’s fiscal situation. It would have required at least 2 new buses at a cost of 250 million won to the county government to provide bus services over the 23 remote areas.

Hope Taxi services have been estimated to require an annual budget of only 60 million won (about US$53,000). This means the local county can save almost 200 million won (about US$171,000) from its already tight budget. Since its destinations are close to the local market, the county office also hopes this will lead to revitalization of the local markets. On the recognition of his crucial contribution to the project, Jung was chosen as the best civil servant and granted an award by the Prime Minister in the beginning of July.

The Hope Taxi is spreading its successful operations to nearby villages. Initially started at 16 villages in June, the Hope Taxi began operating in over 22 villages by July. It is also considering whether to operate Hope Taxi services in other remote rural areas where there are only a couple of buses each day. Seocheon county governor Na So-yeol said, “The Hope Taxi fills a need for underprivileged people who lack access to transit. In this sense, the emphasis should be not just on efficiency of the transit system, but also a guarantee of their access to transit”.

Monsoon rains began falling again at 11:30 am on July 17. An elderly couple living in nearby village, Im Jae-seok, 78, and Park Jong-hee, 76, were waiting for their Hope Taxi to arrive in front of a dental clinic in Seocheon county center. Im had his first ride with the Hope Taxi and said, “How is the Hope Taxi? It’s brilliant! Otherwise, if I wanted to come to Seocheon county center, I would have had to drive my tractor for at least half an hour to Pangyo town center, then wait for a bus that goes to Seocheon county center. But the bus to the county center runs only once an hour!”

Soon after, a Hope Taxi with a sign that read ‘To Mugok village’ arrived. The driver assisted Park, who has some difficulty in walking, to get in the taxi and made his way to Mungok village.

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