When the Bus Comes but You Cannot Board: Korea's Low-Floor Bus Mandate

A bus pulls up. The doors open. And there are three steps. For a wheelchair user, that bus did not arrive. It passed by.

A low-floor bus is exactly what the name says: the floor sits low. When the doors open there are no steps, and a ramp folds out so a wheelchair can roll straight in. In the photograph you can see the entrance sitting close to the ground, with no threshold to climb.

South Korea has a law for this. Its official English title is the Act on Promotion of the Transportation Convenience of Mobility Disadvantaged Persons. The current version was amended on 31 January 2025 and took effect on 1 February 2026.

The key provision is Article 14, paragraph 7. When a route bus operator replaces an ageing vehicle with a new one, the replacement must be a low-floor bus. The Korean legal phrase is "hayeoya handa" - shall, not may. It is an obligation, not an encouragement.

There is a carve-out in the same paragraph. If the road structure or facilities are unsuitable for low-floor buses, the operator may obtain approval from the transport authority and be exempted. The law imposes a duty and simultaneously provides a door out of it.

Paragraph 4 of the same article adds a funding duty: national and local governments shall provide financial support within budgetary limits when low-floor buses are introduced.

So is the matter settled? The National Assembly suggests otherwise. Since 2020, 88 bills have been introduced to amend this single act: 20 in 2020, 16 in 2021, 10 in 2022, 12 in 2023, 7 in 2024, 11 in 2025, and 12 so far in 2026.

Two more were filed in August 2026 alone, by lawmaker Choi Bo-yoon with ten co-sponsors and by lawmaker Yoon Jong-gun with eleven.

A statute that is already in force, still drawing roughly a dozen amendment bills every year, tells you something. Having a provision on the books and being able to board a bus at your stop are two different things.

Local governments add their own ordinances on top. In February 2026 the city of Suwon enacted an ordinance guaranteeing guide dog access for blind residents - a reminder that mobility rights extend well beyond the bus itself.

In the next post I will compare these ordinances region by region. That comparison is where you see what actually changes depending on where a person happens to live.

Official English title: ACT ON PROMOTION OF THE TRANSPORTATION CONVENIENCE OF MOBILITY DISADVANTAGED PERSONS

Sources

• [A] 교통약자의 이동편의 증진법 — 제14조 제7항(대폐차 시 저상버스 도입 의무) · 제4항(재정지원) · 2025-01-31 개정, 2026-02-01 시행
• [A] 교통약자의 이동편의 증진법 일부개정법률안(최보윤의원 등 10인) [2220799] — 2026-08-26 발의
• [A] 교통약자의 이동편의 증진법 일부개정법률안(윤종군의원 등 11인) [2220668] — 2026-08-20 발의
• [A] 수원시 시각장애인 이동권 보장을 위한 안내견 출입보장 조례 — 2026-02-26 제정
• [A] 교통약자의 이동편의 증진법 시행령 — 2026-01-27 개정, 2026-02-01 시행
• [B] 사진 : 현대 뉴 슈퍼 에어로시티 저상버스 (촬영 Ki hoon · CC BY-SA 4.0) — 위키미디어 커먼즈 · 출처 표시 조건으로 사용
• [A] 국회 의안정보시스템 — 이 법 개정법률안 88건(2020~2026) 집계 — 우리 수집 자료에서 연도별 집계

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