The Seoul subway system has one of the highest transport shares in the city of Seoul. A high number of passengers means that a high level of crimes of all kinds occur on the city's subway system. As such, Seoul Metro, created the Subway Protective Guards System in 2009, in an effort to enhance safety on the subway. But this innovative new system did not resolve problems. In fact, many citizens came to question the effectiveness of the new system, as it did not yield tangible results. This study seeks to deduce the problems and activation strategy of the Subway Protective Guards System. An in-depth study was conducted by interviewing subway protective guards who were squad leaders with five or more years of relevant work experience. Semi-structured interview analysis was utilized to evaluate their responses. Specifically, their responses were deduced to identify the strengths and weaknesses internal to the system and the opportunities and threats posed by the environment external to the system. This study presents measures to improve the system based on the aforementioned analysis. Measures for improvement focused on the following areas: the adoption of an education system in response to terror; recruitment and the possibility of becoming a permanent employee; obtaining partial judicial powers; improvement of work environment; and intensifying the promotion of the system.