Citizens in South Korea’s capital city of Seoul travel 11.1 kilometers for 41.5 minutes a day on average to go to work, with 70 percent using public transportation, a survey showed Monday.

According to the survey of 198,000 households in the metropolis conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government on their commuting pattern, it also takes them 36.7 minutes to travel 9.76 kilometers on their return home as of October 2010.

Apart from the everyday commute, Seoul citizens travel 8.9 kilometers per day for about 35.3 minutes for personal business, including attending school and shopping, the survey showed.

By means of transportation, subways and trains topped the list, with 36.2 percent using them for everyday travel, followed by buses with 28.1 percent, passenger cars with 24.1 percent and taxies with 7.2 percent, the survey showed.

The percentage of people using mass transit rose 2 percent from 2006, while that of private cars dropped by 2.2 percent, it showed.

During the morning rush hour of 7 to 9 a.m., those taking public transportation system grew further to 72.9 percent, with subways and trains being used by 44 percent of the respondents and buses by 28.9 percent, according to the survey.

Seoul saw a total of 2.43 million passenger cars registered, up by 7.7 percent from four years ago, with cars being used 2.47 times per day, down from 2.89 in the year 2006, the survey showed.

“It is encouraging that use of private passenger cars is going down, but some 90 percent of the cars are driven without any passengers,” said Yoon Jun-byung, a city official in charge of the transportation matters.

“Based upon the survey, we will come up with ways to improve the transportation system in Seoul, including upgrading the infrastructure for the public transit system,” he added. (Yonhap News)