• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.95-104
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• 2015

Due to its intrinsic characteristic, exterior bus advertising is exposed to an unspecified number of the general public. Thus it influences on the urban publicness of the city, simply beyond leaving it as a personal marketing activity toward the industry's profit. Seoul city's campaign to improve exterior bus advertising has been to effective in removing advertisements of alcohols, tobaccos, and lascivious contents, however, there still are several advertisements that should be examined from the view point of publicness. For the case of UK, where exterior bus advertising is also actively utilizing owing to its high exposure and effectiveness, they are administrating it by setting up guidelines and regarding the importance of publicness. I also identified the meaning of publicness of exterior bus advertising from the aspects of 'publicness of territories', 'publicness of subjects', 'publicness of reasoning', and 'publicness of procedures'. Through this, I suggested that both commercial right of exterior bus advertising in the private sector and citizen's right of publicness can be harmoniously developed by properly controlling and administrating the exterior bus advertising. Furthermore, artistic approach to the exterior bus advertising from the viewpoint of city environment is expected to elevate the aesthetic possession and the level of design sense of citizens.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.361-373
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• 2024

Advertising on the exterior of buses was initiated in 1985 with the aim of generating operational funds for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. However, despite numerous technological advancements, the regulations governing the method (sheet attachment), area, and placement of exterior advertising on buses have remained unchanged to date. This has constrained the potential for profitability and efficiency in bus exterior advertising. According to Seoul Metropolitan Government, metro usage increased by 23 % in 2019 (prior to the COVID-19) compared to 2006, while bus usage decreased by 10 %. Consequently, financial subsidy for buses surged significantly over the past five years (2018-2022), averaging around KRW 450 billion, which is approximately 1.27 times the average for the preceding decade (2013-2022). The majority of revenue for bus transportation agencies is derived from passenger fares (81.1 %) and subsidies from Seoul City (17.5 %). Hence, it is imperative to enhance the share of revenue from sources other than fares. This study proposes an expansion of the role of bus exterior advertising by increasing the advertising area as a means to increase non-fare revenue. Two alternatives were proposed to expand the advertising area by 17 % and 94 %, respectively, compared to the current level, and their potential impacts were analyzed. The findings indicate that advertising revenue could increase from a minimum of KRW 3.2 billion to a maximum of KRW 53.9 billion, and public subsidies could be reduced by as much as 11.9 %. The bus exterior advertising can serve as an effective approach to diversify transportation revenue and decrease public subsidies.