BootsnAll Travel Community

In a recent essay, one of my ESL students mentioned a program in Seoul in which cars are restricted from driving when the last digit of their license plates matches the last digit of the date, thereby reducing private vehichle traffic by close to 10%. I'd love to learn more about this but am having trouble finding any useful info on the internet. Does anyone know anything about this? A link to a website would really be appreciated.

"Traffic is bumper to bumper near a tollgate on the Gyeongbu Highway in Gungnae-dong, Gunpo as people head for their home provinces to celebrate Chuseok with their families on Oct. 3, 2006." ^

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200709/200709140020.html

I live in Korea, and will ask / hunt around for you. The image above was similar in September 2007, on the Friday before Chuseok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving.

Are you sure the reference wasn't to Beijing in China? That's one strategy I read of for the summer olympics.

"On Sunday, Beijing will order about half the city's 3.3 million vehicles off the road in a system that allows them to circulate on alternate days, depending on whether they have license plates ending in odd or even numbers, in a move to cut auto emissions."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/608346.html

quote:

Originally posted by rambutan:


Are you sure the reference wasn't to Beijing in China? That's one strategy I read of for the summer olympics.

Yeah, I am sure about that -- the student's Korean. I did find a reference to city employees in Seoul not being allowed to drive on odd/even days, but apparently this policy applies to regular citizens. I also had some apparent luck when I searched via Google, but the sites that seemed to have positive results were 100+-page long PDFs in which I couldn't find anything. Thanks in advance for your efforts.

Hey Haci,

I don't know if you're only interesteded in the Seoul-specific program, but they use a similar system in Mexico City and have for a long time. If you google Mexico City driiving restrictions you'll find a ton of info. I think I recently read they're expanding the restrictions next month, in fact.