There have been many changes in infrastructure development policies over the past four decades in the Republic of Korea. In the early 1960s, investment in the transport sector was made mainly in railways with an emphasis on commercial lines. Between 1962 and 1966, investments in railway projects accounted for 64.2 per cent of the total investment in the transport sector. In addition to railways, large industrial ports were also constructed to handle imported materials. However, the focus of investment in the transport sector shifted from railways to roads with the massive construction of expressways that began in the late 1960s. The two major road construction projects were the Gyeongin Expressway in 1968 and the Gyeongbu Expressway in 1970. Following these two major developments, many other expressways as well as urban railways and container ports were built throughout the 1970s.
The trend of transport infrastructure development in the 1970s continued in the 1980s. This was also a decade marked by massive development of expressways and urban railways. However, over the years the Government had changed its policies for infrastructure development and began to place greater emphasis on balanced regional development. This shift in emphasis led to lesser allocation of funds for transport infrastructure facilities, resulting in heavy congestion problems in the transport system, which in turn necessitated the mobilization of additional resources for capacity expansion.
However, in the 1990s, many national-level prestigious infrastructure projects were also launched, which included the construction of the Gyeongbu High Speed Railway, Incheon International Airport and Gadeok New Port. Although private participation in transport development began in the late 1960s, the introduction of a PPI policy in 1994 provided the first stimulus for its growth in subsequent years. It was also during this period that the importance of transport systems, including logistics and public transportation in major metropolitan areas, began to be widely recognized.