Foreign tourists prefer subways and railroads while shying away from buses and taxis due to complicated route maps and expensive fares, a survey showed Monday.

About 70 percent of 649 foreign tourists were satisfied by their use of subways and railroads, according to the survey conducted by the Korea Transport Institute between September and October.

The comparable figures for the KTX bullet train was 10.3 percent, taxis 4.9 percent, intercity buses 4.8 percent, city tour and charter buses 2.3 percent.

Foreigners liked subways and railroads because of the simple route maps (33.9 percent), conveniences (15.6 percent), accessibility (14.5 percent) and cheap fares (12.1 percent).

City buses topped the list of dissatisfaction with 24.2 percent due to complicated route maps (21 percent), slow speed (14 percent), unfriendly drivers (12.7 percent) and long waiting times (10.8 percent).

Taxis came in second with 21.6 percent because of expensive fares (45 percent), unfriendly drivers (20 percent) and speeding (9.3 percent).

Seoul was the most popular destination for foreign tourists with 92.6 percent visiting the capital city, followed by Busan with 48.4 percent, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon (25.1 percent) and Gangwon Province (15.1 percent). (Yonhap)