An amphibious aqua bus is going to have the first operation at the Ara waterway to emerge a new tourist attraction on May 15

Foreign tourist visiting Korea will get a new thing to enjoy soon.

It’s the land-to-water aqua bus running to carry passengers in road, waterway and river. And it will run in Gyeongin Ara waterway from May 15. Ara waterway runs parallel with the route of Incheon airport railroad and can easily accessible to Cheongna station, Geomam station and Gyeyang station.

An amphibious bus is designed to run on the ground like a tourist bus and to float as a ship after getting into the water with folded its wheels into the bus.  Aqua tour Korea, its operator, remodeled 8t truck directly and drew duck character to add some affinity to the bus. This is 2.5m wide, 12.5m long, 3.7m high and 12t in weight and can carry up to 39 passengers at any one time. About 34~35 passengers are able to use this bus at one go, except bus driver, captain and tour guide, etc.

For the security of passengers, this bus is equipped with 6 hammers which break windows to escape from inside and also with life vests at every seats for an emergency. And it has ‘self-righting device’ to prevent the general ship from being capsized in sea route and also has 6 automatic pumps to drain waters flowing into this bus.

This water-to-land bus runs the course that connects Sicheon port~Mokssanggyo~Aramaru~Gyeyang station starting from Incheon terminal of Gyeongin Ara waterway(next Marine park of Gyeongin harbor) within 3 minutes by bus from Cheongna station and operates 50 minutes on land, 15 mimutes on the water, respectively. It runs the section which reaches national institute of biological resources~Sicheon port~Mokssanggyo~Aramaru~Gyeyang station for 50 minutes  and then get into the water to look around surroundings. Two buses are being operated by turns at intervals in 30 minutes to 1 hour  from 9:30 am to 6 pm. Its fare is 30,000 KRW for adult and 25,000 for child.

This amphibious bus is the third in the world and the first in Korea. So, it has high expectation to get a hot response from users. As this type of bus doesn’t run in China, Gyeongin Ara waterway is expected to emerge as a unusual tourist attraction to Chinese.