If you’ve taken the subway in South Korean cities like Seoul, you would have noticed that the doors are labeled with numbers like 1-1, 4-1 or 8-3. You may be wondering why are there numbers on these South Korean subway doors?
In fact, if you look even closer, you will find that it is not just the subway doors that have numbers.
Look on the floor in front of the doors and you may come across metal markers, embedded into the floor in front of the doors with similar numbers.
You may be wondering what is the purpose of these numbers? Actually, they serve a very useful purpose.
Why are there Numbers on South Korean Train Doors?
South Korean subway trains can be very long. This makes the subway station platforms also very long to accommodate the trains.
They are so long that it can take even up to five minutes to walk from one end of the train platform to the other end.
Subway stations also have multiple exits and it is not uncommon to have eight or more different exits leading to different destinations.
This can be inconvenient for those in a rush and who want to either exit the subway station quickly, or who need to transfer from one subway line to another subway line in rush.
Faster Transfers and Exits
To help people navigate through the Korean subway system more efficiently, South Korean map apps such as Naver Map provide navigational information such as the closest door to facilitate transfers or to exit the station.
When inputting a destination into a mapping app, it can provide a route using the subway system. This not only includes which lines to take but it also provides information on which train car and door to stand at in order to make fast transfers or fast exits.
Passengers who get on a train at the recommended door will find themselves at the right spot to make the next train connection, or to exit out of the station to reach their final destination.
This is just one more thing about South Korea that makes it special.
