The National Freeway Bureau’s policy of granting priority access to large buses on Freeway No. 5 has succeeded in motivating many motorists to stop using their cars, with the large bus occupancy rate increasing by an average of 14 percent compared with the same period last year.
The bureau said it has been implementing the policy since July as part of its plan to ease holiday traffic on the freeway.
Statistics show that between July and last month, the large bus occupancy rate increased by 16.9 percent on holidays and 12.91 percent on weekdays compared with the same period last year.
On average, the large bus occupancy rate rose by about 14 percent.
Although the overall traffic volume on Freeway No. 5 increased by about 5 percent during the four months since the policy took effect, the bureau said the average travel time during the peak hours had been reduced from 63 minutes in the same period last year to 56 minutes this year.
Compared with small car drivers, people traveling on large buses can save about 32 minutes in travel time, the bureau said.
To encourage more people to use the large buses, the bureau said more shuttle buses were needed to carry passengers to different tourist attractions once they arrive in Yilan.
As an example, the bureau said that the passenger volume of the buses heading to Dongshan River Water Park (冬山河親水公園), one of the tourist attractions in Yilan, doubled after the bus operator increased its service.
The bureau has been seeking creative ways to ease holiday traffic on Freeway No. 5.
Earlier this year, the bureau said that to reduce Lunar New Year traffic through the Hsueshan Tunnel, which comprises a section of Freeway No. 5, anyone who took the alternative Taipei-Yilan route on Highway No. 9 would have the chance to win an iPad.
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