KOREA's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Molit) has announced an agreement to privately finance and build the remaining sections of the GTX-B express commuter line.
GTX-B will run for a total of 82.8km from Incheon via Seoul to Maseok. The 19.9km central section from Yongsan to Sangbong is publicly funded.
Molit awarded the construction contract for the Incheon University - Yongsan and Sangbong - Maseok sections, totalling 62.8km, to a consortium led by Daewoo Engineering and Construction in January 2023.
The consortium will now fund and build these sections and operate the entire GTX-B line over a 40-year period under a build-transfer-operate (BTO) model.
Construction is expected to take six years to complete and cost a total of Won 4.29 trillion ($US 3.2bn). Work on the central section began last year.
Molit now hopes to quickly finalise the agreement with its preferred supplier, which would enable construction to start soon on the remaining two sections.
Running in tunnel up to 40m below the surface, GTX-B services will operate at up to 140km/h and serve a total of 14 stations. Up to 160 trains per day will operate between Incheon National University and Cheongnyangni, carrying over 270,000 passengers.
According to Molit’s director of railways, Mr Yoon Jin-hwan, GTX-B will cut the journey time from Maseok to central Seoul to 30 minutes, compared with over 1 hour at present by metro and bus.
“The journey time between Incheon National University and Maseok is expected to significantly decrease from over two and a half hours to just one hour," he says.
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