Seoul Metropolitan City will increase the number of subway cars and buses Thursday, as well as put more taxis on the road and dispatch 790 emergency transportation vehicles to facilitate smooth traffic on the morning of the Suneung exam.

Suneung is South Korea’s annual college entrance exam that many still believe determine the course of one’s life. This year’s Suneung falls on Thursday, as parents of students taking the exam this year have already started morning prayers at temples and churches.

On the fateful morning, Seoul will extend the peak subway car concentration time by an hour on either side to between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. Buses will run at shorter intervals between 6 a.m. and 8:10 a.m. Some 16,000 additional taxis will operate between 4 a.m. and noon.

For students rushing to assigned exam destinations in the morning, free emergency transportation of police vehicles and motorcycles will be deployed at subway stations and bus stops nearby exam sites.

To eliminate possibilities of traffic congestion, the city of Seoul will delay public employee’s morning commute hour to 10 a.m. and bar private vehicles within 200 meters’ distance of exam sites.

In Seoul alone some 130,000 students are expected to take the Suneung at 208 exam sites across the city’s 11 districts.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)