The number of passengers on South Korea’s bullet trains, the KTX and SRT, hit a record high during the first quarter this year, the trains’ operators said.

From January to March, the number of KTX users jumped to 19.26 million from 17.91 million during the same period last year, according to Korea Railroad Corp.

SR Inc. said the number of SRT users rose to 6.43 million from 6.3 million during the same period.

The operators said pent-up travel demand after years of the COVID-19 pandemic combined with the increased supply of bullet train routes pushed up the quarterly figures.

Among the routes, KTX’s Seoul-Busan route and the SRT’s Suseo-Busan route attracted 1.49 million and 678,000 users, respectively, in the first quarter. (Yonhap)