Taking the train is still an important transportation mode for commuters, with the stations in Taipei, Taoyuan City and Jhongli City ranking as the top three railway hubs with the highest passenger flow in the nation.
At the other extreme, three small stations on the South-Link Line (南迴線) ranked in the bottom three for passenger usage.
Fangye (枋野) Station on the South-Link Line, which connects Pingtung County and Taitung County on the nation’s southern tip, averaged only one passenger per day, according to statistics from 2012.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Railways Administration
After the top three rail hubs, the others in the top 10 for busiest passenger flow in 2012 were Taichung, Tainan, Hsinchu, Banciao (板橋), Kaohsiung, Shulin (樹林) and Songshan (松山) stations.
Peng Kun-yen (彭坤炎), head of the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) Transportation Services Department, said northern regions contain about two-thirds of the population and therefore many of the busiest stations are in the north.
“Taipei Railway Station being No. 1 is no surprise to anyone. Taoyuan and Jhongli stations are up there due to their high numbers of daily commuters taking trains to their place of work,” said Peng, whose office was responsible for calculating the numbers.
“Passenger numbers at New Taipei City’s (新北市) Banciao Station have been diluted in recent years since the opening of the Taipei MRT [Mass Rapid Transit] line. The same goes for Kaohsiung Station due to the opening of the Greater Kaohsiung MRT line. Therefore these two stations have fallen in the rankings,” he said.
The nation’s least used stations in 2012 were in Fangye (枋野), Gujhuang (古莊), Neishih (內獅), Fangshan (枋山), Shanli (山里), Sanmin (三民), Yuemei (月美), Sikou (溪口), Wanggu (望古) and Tafu (大富).
The first four stations on the list are all on the South-Link Line, with Fangye station the least used.
Fangye is a traffic-control signal station for trains making temporary stops to wait for another train to pass and is only used by railway workers.
A TRA official said most of the stations at the bottom of the list are small local railway stations, with low demand and a sparse nearby population. He said the top four least used stations only have four services per day, while two of them are for taking railway employees to and from their jobs.
The TRA is meanwhile promoting its new “Cruise Train” tourist services, which on specific dates allow passengers to stop for sightseeing at designated scenic spots and get back on board the same train to visit the next destination.
One destination is Duoliang (多良) Station, on the southern coast of Taitung County. Although the Duoliang Station was decommissioned in 2006, it is a popular stop for the “Cruise Trains,” as it is in a mountainous setting and has an excellent view of the Pacific Ocean. It has been dubbed Taiwan’s “Most Beautiful Rail Station on the Seashore.”
The TRA official said the company would offer new “Cruise Train” tours with stops at low-usage stations.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
US climber Alex Honnold left Taiwan this morning a day after completing a free-solo ascent of Taipei 101, a feat that drew cheers from onlookers and gained widespread international attention. Honnold yesterday scaled the 101-story skyscraper without a rope or safety harness. The climb — the highest urban free-solo ascent ever attempted — took just more than 90 minutes and was streamed live on Netflix. It was covered by major international news outlets including CNN, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As Honnold prepared to leave Taiwan today, he attracted a crowd when he and his wife, Sanni,
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
RSS