Some tickets bought online or via a smartphone do not need to be retrieved for physical tickets in a terminal. Make sure your phone has enough power as it needs to be turned on and displaying a QR code for you to ride the bus. If your phone loses power, then you cannot prove you bought a ticket and will probably be denied entry to the bus. If this situation happens to you, show them the card you used to purchase the ticket and they might be able to manually check and see if you paid for a ticket.

Needing a physical ticket or digital ticket is determined by either the bus company and/or the ticket seller. You’ll need to check the app you purchased your tickets on to see if you need to simply scan your phone or go through the more cumbersome process of retriving a physical ticket. Once you have the physical ticket or the QR code on your smartphone, head over to the platform, find your bus, and scan the ticket or your phone on one of the ticket scanning devices located just inside the entrance to the bus. Several designs are shown below and will vary by bus operator.

If you only need to scan your smartphone, you’ll have a QR code or maybe a barcode that is scanned at the ticket scanning machine at the entrance to your bus. Here is one of the machines that accepted a digital ticket. If you want to see the image and words more clearly, click the picture to see a larger version.

Make sure the digital ticket is displayed and place it under the scanner. If there is a problem the driver will assist you best of his abilities. If it worked correctly your seat number should be displayed. In the previous image you can see seat number 20 and some words in Korean.

Here is another ticket scanning and selling machine. If there are still seats available, you can purchase them with bank card or transport card and can get a printed receipt. If you already have a, in this instance, paper ticket, you scan it under the large white arrow. If you want to see the image and words more clearly, click the picture to see a larger version.

If you are curious and look around you’ll frequently find a TV at the front of the vehicle. Here the TV is showing a color pattern which indicates what seats have not been sold (white), which seats have been sold but the person has not scanned their ticket yet (aqua blue), and which seats have their passenger checked in (orange). It appears that seats with a yellow wrap about them are to indicate children or youth tickets sold but has not been independently confirmed by the creator of this website.

At this moment, 18 people have bought tickets, scanned them, and are on the bus ready for departure. Three additional tickets have been sold but the passengers have not yet scanned them nor entered the bus. And finally, there are zero unsold tickets.