Operation
The Pyongyang Metro was designed to operate every few minutes. During the rush hours, the trains can operate at a minimum interval of 2 minutes. Until recently, many foreign tourists were only allowed to travel between Puhŭng Station and Yŏngwang Station. However, foreign students have been allowed to freely use the entire metro system. These two stations in this line that were completed in 1987, while the others in this line were all completed in 1973, suggesting that they may be less modern. It has also been suggested that foreign tourists are limited to the Puhŭng and Yŏngwang stations because these two stations are typically less crowded due to their location at the end of a line, therefore reducing interactions between foreigners and locals. It is noted by more recent tourists, traveling with Young Pioneer Tours or Koryo Tours, have been allowed five station rides. University students traveling with the Pyongyang Project have reported visiting six stations.
It is also one of the cheapest in the world to ride, at only 5 KP₩ (about $0.03 USD) per ticket. The Metro used to utilize an aluminium token, with the emblem of the Metro minted on it and the Korean "지". However, it now uses a paper ticket system also with 지 printed on it. Smoking and eating inside the subway system is prohibited, and punishable by a large fine.
Read more about this topic: Pyongyang Metro
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)