짧은 연휴… 추석 귀성길 12일 오전, 추석 당일 오후 귀경길 가장 혼잡
Millions of South Koreans will be traveling to their hometowns over the Chuseok holiday to spend time with family.
That means a lot of traffic on the nation's highways.
Our Lee Min-sun takes a look at the traffic forecast for Chuseok and some ways the government will be trying to keep things moving. Chuseok is one of Korea's biggest holidays, and it's also the time when people spend long hours on congested roads.
This year, most people will get 4 days off in a row, from Thursday through the weekend.
The transportation ministry has announced special traffic measures starting Wednesday.
A total of 33-and-a-half million people are expected to travel starting that day, and over 86% of them will go by car.
Because this year's holiday is relatively short, most people leaving Seoul are expected to hit the road Thursday morning and come back Friday afternoon.
On average, there'll be some 5 million cars on highways each day which is 7.5% more than last year.
Chuseok travelers should brace for a long trip. Drive times to major cities could be up to an hour and 50 minutes longer than last year from Seoul to Busan by car, an estimated 8-and-a-half hours.
Real-time traffic information is available on the website of the traffic authorities and on mobile applications.
To help, the government will add extra capacity on buses and trains on average, an additional 13-hundred express buses per day, another hundred-thousand seats on the high-speed trains and 34-thousand seats on the regular trains.
The government says it's also conducted security checks on the highways, trains, airports and seaports to ensure safety and is prepared to deal with emergencies.
Lee Min-sun, Arirang News.
