Korea National Railway is a railroad construction and management company in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

formed by the merger of KNR Construction Headquarters and Korean Express Railroad Construction Corporation. Its main clients are

Korail The Korea Railroad Corporation () is the national railway operator in South Korea. It is branded as KORAIL () and changed its official Korean name () in November 2019. Currently, KORAIL is a public corporation, managed by Ministry of Land, ...

. It is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Korea National Railway was established as the ''Korean National Railroad Administration'' by the Korea National Railway Act.

History

During the early 2000s, the South Korean government decided to split the national railroad into separate companies for operation and construction. Consequently, the Korean National Railroad was broken up into

(established in January 2004) and Korea Rail Network Authority (established in January 2005 and renamed to Korea National Railway in September 2020), the former managing train operations while the latter maintains the railway infrastructure. Amongst other benefits, this change was promoted as permitting

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

across the Korean railway system; Korail functioned as the incumbent operator. It is responsible for the management of all railway infrastructure in South Korea, which includes the development of railway stations; these activities are governed and set by various railway policies, budget allocations, and safety standards. Perhaps its most high profile undertaking of the organisation is the oversight of all railway-related construction projects. Korea National Railway works closely with train operators such as Korail. By 2018, the organisation reportedly had an annual budget of $8 billion, managed asset worth a combined $100 billion, and had 2,194 employees working for it. Further reform of the railways and efforts to support the presence of private rail companies on Korea's railway network occurred during the 2010s. In 2012, the then-

Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT; ) is a cabinet-level division of the government of South Korea. Its headquarters is in the Sejong Government Office in Sejong City. Previously the agency was headquartered in the 4th buil ...

called for bids to operate high-speed trains for 15 years on the Seoul–Busan and Seoul–Mokpo lines with the goal was to end the

state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

Korail's

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

and create competition for the state-run KTX trains, hoping to increase the quality of service and decrease fares.

SR Corporation SR Corporation (, formerly ''Suseo High Speed Rail Corporation''), also known as Supreme Railways, is a South Korean rail operator that operates high-speed rail services. The company was established in December 2013 and adopted its current name ...

, founded in 2014, won the concession to operate the trains; though

owns 41 percent of its shares, a teachers' pension fund and two Korean banks own a combined 59 percent of shares, with SR thus operating independently from the government and Korail. In December 2016, SR Corporation officially launched ''SRT'' (Super Rapid Train) services, initially running between Suseo–Busan on a newly-opened high speed line. Being an open-access operator, it has been charged larger fees for track access by Korea National Railway than those imposed on Korail's KTX services, paying 50 percent of its sales revenue against the KTX's 34 percent. SR Corporation has claimed that its presence has increased competition, driving down ticket prices and raising service quality overall, while also contributing to the repayments of the accumulated debts from the construction of Korea’s high-speed network.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

KNR official website (English)
Railway infrastructure companies Railway companies of South Korea Government-owned companies of South Korea Government-owned railway companies {{SouthKorea-company-stub