Lunar New Year travel exposes generational digital divide

Social Affairs

Published: 13 Feb. 2024, 18:01 Updated: 13 Feb. 2024, 19:41

Lunar New Year travel exposes generational digital divide

Jeong, 74, points to the electronic display board that says that seats were sold out on Thursday. [JEONG SAE HEE]

Elderly Koreans had a tough time grabbing train seats to visit their families this Lunar New Year holiday, demonstrating the widening digital divide between the older and younger generations as services move online.

“Just give me any seat left; even a standing-room ticket is okay,” Choi, 78, said at the KTX ticket stand for the "transportation disadvantaged" at Seoul Station the day before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday.

Lunar New Year, or Seollal, is a major family holiday in Korea. Hundreds of thousands travel to visit their families during this period, making purchasing a train ticket more competitive.

Choi insisted that even a standing-room ticket was okay. A standing-room ticket has no assigned seat, so customers may have to stand during their train trip.

Choi needed a ticket to Dongdaegu Station to visit his family, but they were all sold out.

The employee informed Choi that online ticketing started last month, which aggravated Choi.

"What do you expect from elderly people who only use phones to make calls when buying tickets online?” Choi said the employee. “How can a system make it difficult for someone to visit their family during the holidays?”

An elderly person tries to get a KTX ticket bound for his hometown at Seoul Station. [LEE YOUNG KEUN]

Many elderly individuals unfamiliar with mobile or online ticketing head to Seoul Station to buy tickets in person before the Seollal holiday.

Tickets were already sold out for the holiday, but people who couldn't get one were staking out at the station to snag canceled tickets.

“Any type of seat is okay; just give me a seat,” Heo, 71, said after being told that every seat bound for Busan was sold out.

Heo left the station dejected, failing to get a ticket. “How can everything be sold out?” he asked.

Complaints arose due to waiting times caused by long ticket queues.

“I’m worried I won’t get a ticket,” Lee, 70, told the JoongAng Ilbo. “Not knowing the situation, I have been waiting in line for tens of minutes.”

Korail, the state-run train operator, sold tickets exclusively for the Lunar New Year holiday from Jan. 8 to 11 through its mobile app and internet website.

The operator increased the allocation for transportation-disadvantaged individuals, including elderly and disabled individuals, from 10 percent to 20 percent this year and opened a separate ticketing hour for them from 9:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Jan. 8 and 9.

The 20 percent allocation was split into two halves, with each half going to phone and online reservations to expand opportunities.

However, elderly travelers often shun online reservations as they are unused to the internet.

Most elderly travelers who succeeded in grabbing a ticket got help from their children.

“I might have needed to wait in line for hours if my son didn’t buy me a ticket,” said Kim, 70, who was going back to her hometown, Gwangju, after a doctor’s appointment in Seoul. “I couldn’t have gone home if it wasn’t for my son, who keeps calling me out of worry.”

Jeong, 74, purchased a standing-room ticket on-site for her trip to Yeosu. However, her daughter-in-law helped her secure a proper seat for the journey, buying her a seat online. However, she had to wait for three hours.

Some people could buy a ticket by waiting at the station for hours.

Kang Gyeong-seong, 65, said he waited three hours at the station on Thursday to get a ticket to Ulsan. He tried to make a reservation online and through the phone but failed, so he waited at the station.

“Everything was dead, both the internet and phone system, making it more complicated,” Kang said.

Kwon Sang-geun looks out the window of a train headed to Dongdaegu Station. In his 70s, he had to stand for an hour and 40 minutes until he arrived at his destination as he was unable to secure a seat online. [LEE YOUNG KEUN]

Due to this digital divide, young people sat for their Lunar New Year trips, while older passengers stood after barely securing standing-room tickets.

“If you can’t get a ticket, you have to stand as there aren’t any priority seats for older people like on subways,” Kwon Sang-geun, 76, who had to stand for an hour and 40 minutes on his way to Dongdaegu Station.

“It will be nice to allocate more tickets for older people regardless of the reservation medium, but I know it’s hard because even young people are struggling to get tickets, too,” he added.

Experts suggest implementing policies prioritizing senior citizens, as bridging the digital gap between generations is a complex issue that cannot be solved quickly.

“It will take some time for elderly people to learn and get used to the internet,” said Professor Yu Jeong-whon of Ajou University’s Department of Transportation Systems Engineering. More policies that consider elderly individuals are needed, such as securing more offline tickets during the holidays.”

“One way to address transportation-disadvantaged individuals is for the government to increase ticket allocations and incentivize Korail to expand and introduce policies for senior citizens,” said Choi Jin-seok, a researcher at the Korea Transport Institute.

“We are putting effort into making the system more accessible for elderly people by making a guidebook and educating them,” Korail said.

BY LEE YOUNG-KEUN,JEONG SAE-HEE,KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]