Gyeonggi Province to provide information services with accurate English terms for the convenience of foreigners

The use of intra-city buses in Gyeonggi Province is expected to become more convenient for foreign visitors this year.

“Foreign visitors have had problems using public transportation in Gyeonggi Province since information was limitedly offered in foreign languages on buses, in contrast to subways that provide information services in English, Chinese, and Japanese,” a provincial official explained regarding the background of this project.

Accordingly, Gyeonggi Province implemented this English translation service to enable foreign visitors to obtain information with exact terms in compliance with the ‘Guidance for English Translation and Mark of Public Terms’ of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. After reviewing the translations, the ‘English bus station terms’ will be finally determined by March.

Thereafter, the terms will be applied to G-Bus TV programs installed on Gyeonggi buses in consultation with G BUS TV Co., Ltd. The G-Bus TV program is an ‘e-indicator board’ that displays the names of arrival stations; it will display the names of stations in Korean as well as in English to passengers.

When the display of English station names via G-Bus TV is implemented, foreign visitors will be able to use public transportation more easily than with station names provided only in Korean. Furthermore, it will enhance foreigner use of public transportation.

Moreover, Gyeonggi Province will provide official documents to each city and county to correct misspellings of bus station names and route maps in buses based on the results of the translation service.

In addition, Gyeonggi Province has a plan to inspect and correct the English names of intra-city bus stations through a research service for the improvement of passenger transport service on all lines in Gyeonggi Province that will be conducted every 5 years. In the future, the province plans to carry out an expansion of English information service with audio guidance as well as an expansion of information services in a variety of other languages such as Chinese.

“Currently, about 549,000 foreigners live in Gyeonggi Province, accounting for the largest percentage in the country,” explained a provincial official. “The Gyeonggi Provincial Government will expand the scope of English information services to mitigate difficulties foreigners have in using public transportation such as buses.”