1001 Smart Cities
🇰🇷 Seoul

Owl Bus (Night Bus) — Big-Data Route Design

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 12 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

12 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Corrected 5 Oct 2026 2 sources added. · 4 revisions in all What changed →

The night-bus map was drawn from over 3 billion anonymised call records and late-night taxi data rather than a planner's guess. Eight routes, 47 vehicles, about 7,700 passengers on an average night.

Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence🏛️ Official
what does this mean?The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run bySeoul Metropolitan Government
Scale🏙️ City-wide

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,216 documented projects · 🏙️ 8 more in Seoul · 🚌 Public transport guide · 🚲 Mobility projects

Seoul's late-night 'Owl Bus' network (routes prefixed N, now running from about 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.) had its route map designed by analysing over 3 billion anonymised mobile-phone call records and late-night taxi data to find where night travellers actually move. Launched as a two-route trial in April 2013, it opened as nine routes in September 2013; the city counted eight routes with 47 vehicles in June 2016, carrying about 7,700 passengers on an average night — a case the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank both wrote up as data-driven transport planning. Seoul widened it to 14 routes in April 2022, and all 14 still ran nightly in February 2026.

Live 📅 since 2013

📊 Impact

Seoul's own evaluation reports the night service scoring 80.15 points for service satisfaction against 74.3 points for standard buses in a 500-passenger survey, and credits it with two secondary effects: taxi refusal of passengers fell 8.9% and the female population participating in night activities rose 11% (Seoul City, 2014). All figures are the city government's own; no independent evaluation of the service has been published, and the two secondary effects are reported without a stated method or control group.

🎓 Lesson

The famous half of this project is the input: three billion anonymised call records and five million taxi trips instead of a planner's guess. The unexamined half is the output. Every number the city publishes about what the routes achieved — the satisfaction score, the 8.9 per cent fall in taxi refusals, the 11 per cent rise in women out at night — is the city's own, and none of it comes with a stated method or a control group. More than a decade on, the routes still run and no independent evaluation has been published. Designing from data is not the same thing as measuring the result.

🚲 MobilityPublic transportSafety & securityPrivacy & personal data

Sources

↗ Seoul Metropolitan Government (authority)Published 22 December 2016Official account of routes, hours, method and ridership.
↗ Seoul Solution (authority)Published 14 October 2014 · updated 26 April 2017 archived copyDetailed route-design methodology from mobile and taxi data.
↗ World Bank Transport blog (analysis)Published 27 April 2015Independent explainer of the data method.
↗ Development Asia / ADB (analysis)Published 3 October 2019Case study of the project as a data-for-policy exemplar; corroborates ~7,900/night ridership by Dec 2016.
↗ Korea JoongAng Daily — Seoul to extend public transportation to 1 a.m. during Lunar New Year holiday (9 Feb 2026)All 14 overnight Owl Bus routes run daily from 11:10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and continue as usual in 2026.
Show 3 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ News Tomato — Seoul expands Owl Bus ahead of endemic transition (5 Apr 2022)Night routes expanded from 9 to 14 from 18 April 2022, with new lines N32, N34, N51, N64, N72, N75 (Korean text; exact phrase not captured).
↗ Korea JoongAng Daily — Night owls to see better bus links (3 Sep 2013)Nine late-night-only lines (N10, N13, N16, N26, N30, N37, N40, N61, N62) to start on 12 Sept 2013 after a three-month test of N26 and N37; routes laid out using 3 billion KT mobile-phone records.
↗ Korea JoongAng Daily — Owl Buses spread their wings as pandemic winds down (5 Apr 2022)City announcement: Owl Bus routes to grow in phases from nine to 15 (N65 split into N51 and N64), buses from 72 to 100; four new routes from 18 April, two in May.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2013. 8 of 8 sources carry a publication date, from 3 September 2013 to 9 February 2026.

When the sources were published

  1. Korea JoongAng Daily — Night owls to see better bus links (3 Sep 2013)
  2. Seoul Metropolitan Government · city governmentSeoul Solution (authority) · updated 26 April 2017
  3. World Bank · international organisationWorld Bank Transport blog (analysis)
  4. Seoul Metropolitan Government · city governmentSeoul Metropolitan Government (authority)
  5. Asian Development Bank · international organisationDevelopment Asia / ADB (analysis)
  6. News Tomato — Seoul expands Owl Bus ahead of endemic transition (5 Apr 2022)
  7. Korea JoongAng Daily — Owl Buses spread their wings as pandemic winds down (5 Apr 2022)
  8. Korea JoongAng Daily — Seoul to extend public transportation to 1 a.m. during Lunar New Year holiday (9 Feb 2026)

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Entered the record
  2. 7 claims added
  3. Evidence grade changed: independent → official
  4. 2 sources added
  5. 2 sources added
  6. Sources last read

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 12 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence file · public beta 12 addressable claims, 8 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The file is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 12

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-d4c59ec060300a90 quantitative
had its route map designed by analysing over 3 billion anonymised mobile-phone call records and late-night taxi data to find where night travellers actually move
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city's own methodology account and the ADB case study both describe more than three billion mobile call logs, together with journey data from over five million taxi rides, used to map where late-night travellers are.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Seoul Solution (authority)
  2. Development Asia / ADB (analysis)
Claim 2 clm-665ba4b49964ce2e quantitative
the city counted eight routes with 47 vehicles in June 2016, carrying about 7,700 passengers on an average night
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city's own account dates the two-route trial to April 2013 and reports 47 buses on eight routes as of June 2016, with an average of about 7,700 users a night.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Seoul Metropolitan Government (authority)
Claim 3 clm-e4b5d05bb8ec402e quantitative
Seoul's own evaluation reports the night service scoring 80.15 points for service satisfaction against 74.3 points for standard buses in a 500-passenger survey
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city's account reports a survey of 500 passengers after three months of two-route operation giving the night bus 80.15 points against 74.3 for standard buses.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Seoul Solution (authority)
Claim 4 clm-b0c668ac78960ba7 quantitative
credits it with two secondary effects: taxi refusal of passengers fell 8.9% and the female population participating in night activities rose 11% (Seoul City, 2014)
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The same account lists both secondary effects, attributing the 11 per cent rise to Seoul City in 2014.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Seoul Solution (authority)
Claim 5 clm-b3dbb78cb6e43e52 descriptive
All figures are the city government's own; no independent evaluation of the service has been published, and the two secondary effects are reported without a stated method or control group
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The satisfaction score and both secondary effects come from the city's own account, which states no method for them; the World Bank and ADB pieces explain the data method and repeat the city's numbers rather than testing them.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Seoul Solution (authority)
  2. World Bank Transport blog (analysis)
  3. Development Asia / ADB (analysis)
Claim 6 clm-edc2a0a71e08e7ec quantitative
three billion anonymised call records and five million taxi trips instead of a planner's guess
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The case study describes over three billion mobile call logs and journey data from over five million taxi rides as the basis of the route design.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Development Asia / ADB (analysis)
Claim 7 clm-652b9685d8b79631 quantitative
the 8.9 per cent fall in taxi refusals, the 11 per cent rise in women out at night — is the city's own, and none of it comes with a stated method or a control group
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
Both figures appear in the city's own account under a list of effects, with no method described for either.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Seoul Solution (authority)
Claim 8 clm-cce0cdafa8218e4a quantitative
Seoul widened it to 14 routes in April 2022
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
News Tomato reports the expansion from 9 to 14 routes from 18 April 2022.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. News Tomato — Seoul expands Owl Bus ahead of endemic transition (5 Apr 2022)
Claim 10 clm-63c599394bd20665 quantitative
Launched as a two-route trial in April 2013
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
'SMG started trial operations of Owl Buses in April 2013 along two different routes.'
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Seoul Metropolitan Government (authority)
Claim 11 clm-da3170881c1ddf71 quantitative
it opened as nine routes in September 2013
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
'Nine late-night-only city bus lines will start operating in Seoul on Sept. 12', listing N26, N37, N13, N16, N61, N62, N10, N30 and N40.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Korea JoongAng Daily — Night owls to see better bus links (3 Sep 2013)
Claim 12 clm-c5f6c5b9c1a506a7 descriptive
a case the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank both wrote up as data-driven transport planning
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The World Bank transport blog explains the Owl Bus data method; Development Asia (ADB) presents it as a case study of using big data to design night bus routes.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. World Bank Transport blog (analysis)
  2. Development Asia / ADB (analysis)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-10-05-p4-quality-run effective 2026-10-05 · created 2026-10-05

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:4f456267e59a8862fc89d235a960bd4187621f0ee13fdc3229e2c3ae91cb628a
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
12
of 12 claims mapped
8
source dossiers
8
publication dates recorded
1
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Seoul Metropolitan Government
Actor types
city-government
Funding model
public
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

8 source dossiers

Seoul Metropolitan Government (authority) english.seoul.go.kr · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-8d4cc058fcf7d9b1
Publisher
Name not classified · english.seoul.go.kr
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2016-12-22
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Official account of routes, hours, method and ridership.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Seoul Solution (authority) seoulsolution.kr · 5 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-6ee387d4485ac44c
Publisher
Name not classified · seoulsolution.kr
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2014-10-14
Updated
2017-04-26
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
Open archived copy ↗ · 2025-12-20
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Detailed route-design methodology from mobile and taxi data.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
World Bank Transport blog (analysis) blogs.worldbank.org · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-3beb18dd64552776
Publisher
Name not classified · blogs.worldbank.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2015-04-27
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Independent explainer of the data method.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Development Asia / ADB (analysis) development.asia · 4 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-832db2b728b330dd
Publisher
Name not classified · development.asia
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2019-10-03
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Case study of the project as a data-for-policy exemplar; corroborates ~7,900/night ridership by Dec 2016.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Korea JoongAng Daily — Seoul to extend public transportation to 1 a.m. during Lunar New Year holiday (9 Feb 2026) koreajoongangdaily.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-b6507429687be560
Publisher
Name not classified · koreajoongangdaily.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-02-09
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

All 14 overnight Owl Bus routes run daily from 11:10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and continue as usual in 2026.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
News Tomato — Seoul expands Owl Bus ahead of endemic transition (5 Apr 2022) newstomato.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-f069fdb7abf1442f
Publisher
Name not classified · newstomato.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2022-04-05
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Night routes expanded from 9 to 14 from 18 April 2022, with new lines N32, N34, N51, N64, N72, N75 (Korean text; exact phrase not captured).

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Korea JoongAng Daily — Night owls to see better bus links (3 Sep 2013) koreajoongangdaily.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-96cc513b64019331
Publisher
Name not classified · koreajoongangdaily.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2013-09-03
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Nine late-night-only lines (N10, N13, N16, N26, N30, N37, N40, N61, N62) to start on 12 Sept 2013 after a three-month test of N26 and N37; routes laid out using 3 billion KT mobile-phone records.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Korea JoongAng Daily — Owl Buses spread their wings as pandemic winds down (5 Apr 2022) koreajoongangdaily.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-042bf58108f22730
Publisher
Name not classified · koreajoongangdaily.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2022-04-05
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

City announcement: Owl Bus routes to grow in phases from nine to 15 (N65 split into N51 and N64), buses from 72 to 100; four new routes from 18 April, two in May.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this file
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇰🇪 Digital Matatus: Nairobi's Matatu Routes Mapped into GTFS · Nairobi Seoul mined call-record data to design new night routes (2013); Nairobi's Digital Matatus GPS-mapped an existing matatu network (2012). 🇰🇷 Weight-Based Food Waste Fee (RFID Smart Bins) · Seoul Two Seoul data projects: Owl Bus mined call records for night buses (2013), this weighs food waste to bill by the kilogram. 🇰🇷 TOPIS — Seoul Transport Operation & Information Service · Seoul Seoul's two big-data transit systems: Owl Bus mined call data for night-bus routes (2013), TOPIS runs live traffic ops (2005).

Explore the wider context

🔑 Your Smart City Is Owned by Someone Else📖 CBTC (communications-based train control)📖 Grades of Automation (GoA)📖 ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition)
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Owl Bus (Night Bus) — Big-Data Route Design” — Seoul, South Korea. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/seoul-owl-bus/ (last verified 2026-10-05). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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