Public Transportation In Korea

Korean Taxi Service

Taxis in Korea are clean, safe and reasonably inexpensive. There are taxi stands in many of the busy areas of most Korean cities. Alternatively, they can be hailed down in the street by raising your arm palm down. Some taxi services will come directly to a predetermined pickup spot for an additional service fee.

There are two main types of taxi service operating in South Korea, Regular and Deluxe "Mobeom". The Deluxe service is typically found in the larger cities so the bulk of the taxis one would see are the Regular service taxis.

Taxis in Korea operate on metered fares and pre-determined agreed fares. Metered fares will vary based on the type of taxi, the distance traveled and the time of day traveling. Make sure to negotiate and agree to a rate if the taxi does not have a meter. Most medium to large cities have metered taxi's.

Many taxi drivers can speak some limitted English but it's a good suggestion to get a Korean friend or co-worker to write down your destination on a piece of paper in Hangul so that you can offer it to the taxi driver in case he does not speak any English at all.

It is very common for a taxi driver to stop and pick up additional passengers heading in the same direction as you. This is called "Hapseung" in Korean. The original passenger pays the metered total amount, and the added passenger pays the metered amount not including the fare when they entered the taxi. Although this is technically illegal, taxi drivers still persist in running their business this way. The added passenger fare is pocketed with no audit trail. It is also beneficial to the passengers during rush hour when taxi's are hard to flag down empty. Deluxe taxis do not taxi share.