President Lee Jae-myung has pledged to end the monopoly that has run the Namsan cable car for more than 60 years, but delays in the related rule changes are raising the odds that the incumbent operator keeps its exclusive hold. If the situation drags on, critics say, the license renewal system introduced to break up that long-standing monopoly could end up as a formality.
Korea Cable Car Co., which operates the Namsan cable car, must win renewed approval from the Seoul Metropolitan Government by September 2028 at the latest, according to reporting by The Seoul Economic Daily on the 6th. The revised Track Transportation Act, which took effect on the 18th of last month, caps the validity of a track transport license at 20 years and requires operators that have already run for more than 20 years to obtain renewal within two years of the effective date.
That applies to Korea Cable Car, which received its business license in 1961 and has effectively operated the Namsan cable car on an exclusive basis since the following year. The company has booked several billion won in operating profit in recent years, and its monopoly of more than six decades has drawn persistent complaints of preferential treatment.
The president and his office have flagged the issue repeatedly. At a Cabinet meeting in December last year, Lee pointed to the Namsan cable car and asked, "Why does one particular individual get to enjoy all those privileges there for decades?" Kang Hoon-sik, chief of the presidential secretariat, also took issue with a monopoly arrangement sustained for more than 60 years and called for rule changes, including a fixed term for the license.
The renewal system is designed to replace a structure in which an operator could continue indefinitely without any set expiration, subjecting the business to periodic reassessment instead. The problem is that it will be all but impossible to have an alternative mode of transport in place to replace the existing cable car by the time the first renewal comes due.
The leading alternative, a gondola, has been stalled since October 2024 by litigation brought by Korea Cable Car and others. The Seoul city government also sought to restart construction by revising the enforcement decree of the Park and Green Space Act, but that effort has effectively returned to square one. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport gave public notice of a proposed revision last year but took no follow-up steps, and has recently concluded that any new attempt at revision would have to begin again with a fresh public notice.
Even if gondola construction resumed immediately, the city expects regular service to begin only in the first half of 2029 — later than Korea Cable Car's renewal deadline of September 2028. That leaves the city likely to rule on the company's renewal with no alternative service available. "If Korea Cable Car applies for renewal while the gondola is not in place, it would be practically difficult to deny it, barring serious problems with safety or operations," a Seoul city official said.
On the 17th of last month, Lee said of the renewal system created through the revised Track Transportation Act and its subordinate rules, "The cable car that a particular family and company have monopolized as a privilege for decades is only now being put right." The renewal system has indeed opened a path to ending the monopoly, but with the alternative service delayed, there is little assurance that the structure will actually change in practice.
A transport policy expert said, "Even with a renewal system, a local government's options are inevitably limited if there is no alternative mode of transport," adding that "fixing a long-standing monopoly requires a prompt resolution of the regulatory questions surrounding the alternative service as well."
