Train tickets harder to get than minister briefings: Sejong officials struggle with rail crunch

A director-general at a Sejong-based ministry cannot sleep in on weekends. Every Saturday and Sunday, he sets an alarm for 6:59 a.m. and reaches for his phone to book SRT seats for his commute a month later. SRT reservations open exactly one month in advance, so missing that window means losing any chance of securing a seat.

A deputy director at another Sejong-based ministry ran into the same problem when a last-minute ministerial briefing was called. He opened the Korail app on his phone, only to find every seat on Friday afternoon KTX trains from Osong to Seoul already sold out. With his home in Sejong, finding a ticket back on Friday evenings is no easier. "When something urgent comes up, I end up spending the entire workday glued to my phone, hitting refresh and waiting for a cancellation to appear," he said.

Among Sejong government officials, securing a train ticket between Seoul and Sejong for the daily commute or a business trip has become its own administrative bottleneck. There are growing concerns that as more agencies relocate to Sejong, competition for seats on the Seoul-Osong corridor will only intensify. Officials say announcements about additional ministry relocations must be accompanied by concrete infrastructure plans.

Data Korail submitted Sunday to People Power Party lawmaker Jeong Jeom-sik showed that the number of passengers traveling between Osong and Daejeon and Seoul and Yongsan rose 85.9 percent, from about 5.832 million in 2021 to about 10.842 million in 2025.

In the first quarter of this year alone, about 2.685 million passengers used the same corridor. The figures combine ridership at Osong and at Daejeon and Seo-Daejeon stations for trips to and from Seoul and Yongsan.

The core problem is that Seoul-centric meetings and briefings show no sign of letting up, keeping demand for northbound trains among Sejong civil servants persistently high.

Since the Lee Jae-myung administration took office, officials say Seoul business trips have increased further. Interministerial coordination meetings and briefings at Government Complex Seoul have multiplied as the new government juggles the Middle East war, real estate market instability, inflation pressures, its own policy agenda and ongoing organizational restructuring. Emergency meetings are routinely scheduled the day before or the same day, meaning a failure to secure a KTX ticket directly translates into a missed trip.

"Video calls are becoming more common, but it still feels awkward to join by video from Sejong when the minister is attending in person," one Sejong government official said. "There are times when more administrative energy goes into finding a ticket than into the trip itself."

Demand is rising fast, but supply expansion has been limited. According to Korail, the daily number of KTX services on weekends fell from 285 in 2021 to 284 in 2022, then climbed to 295 in 2023 and 299 in 2024. The figure has held at 299 through May of this year. The prevailing view is that the current schedule is already near its operational ceiling, making a short-term increase in services difficult.

Concerns are mounting that the situation will worsen if the Financial Services Commission and other financial-sector agencies follow through on plans to relocate to Sejong, adding more pressure to an already strained corridor.