It has therefore been suggested that cultivating alternative sources of transport financing should be a priority. The periods on the xaxis correspond to the seven 5-year economic development plans, which were first launched in 1962 and terminated in 1997. However, more recently, the share of its total public investment devoted to transport infrastructure decreased from 8.2% to 6.6% between 2006 and 2015. Railways - and especially high-speed railways - have also gradually surfaced back as an alternative response to car-centred development and to the side effects of the latter, such as congestion and environmental degradation.4 The high-speed Korea Train eXpress (KTX), first inaugurated in 2004, handled 42.3% of total rail traffic in 2010.