Ridership on the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system on New Year’s Eve and early New Year’s Day exceeded 3 million passengers, breaking the previous record, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said yesterday.
A total of 3.03 million passengers traveled on the Taipei MRT system in the 24-hour period between 6am on Thursday and 6am yesterday, an increase of 66,000 from a year earlier, company statistics showed.
With the expansion of the MRT network, ridership on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day has been growing to record-breaking numbers, the company said.
Photo: CNA
In 2014, the company inaugurated the Songshan-Xindian line that intersects with three others, allowing more people to go to New Year’s parties around Taipei 101.
About 402,000 passengers rode the Songshan-Xindian line, 829,000 rode the Tamsui-Xinyi line and about 1 million rode the Bannan line in the 24-hour period, the company said.
After the fireworks show ended at Taipei 101, revelers flocked to the Taipei City Hall MRT station, Yongchun station and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall station on the Bannan Line and the Taipei 101/World Trade Center station and Xiangshan station on the Tamshi-Xingyi Line, the company said.
Extra trains were put into service to deal with the high number of passengers, it said.
An additional staff of 1,600, some of them volunteers, was also deployed to maintain order and give directions, the company said.
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