The high-speed rail system last year saw a more than 10 percent increase in average daily riders, because of the addition of new stations along its route, government statistics showed.
Citing the data, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said that Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC), the nation’s sole high-speed rail transport services provider, last year carried an average of about 155,000 passengers per day, an increase of 11.6 percent from the 139,000 recorded in 2015.
The DGBAS said that THSRC benefited from adding Miaoli, Changhua and Yunlin stations at the end of 2015, as well as Nangang Station in July last year.
The high-speed railway stops at 12 stations from Taipei’s Nangang (南港) in the north to Kaohsiung’s Zuoying (左營) in the south.
DGBAS data showed that the increase in THSRC’s passenger occupancy last year was higher than the 5.3 percent recorded in 2015, indicating that the four additional stations gave a significant boost to its passenger numbers last year.
However, the Taiwan Railways Administration, which operates multiple railway lines across the nation, last year saw a decline of more than 1 percent in the average number of daily riders, the DGBAS said.
Last year, Taiwan Railways carried an average of 629,000 passengers per day, representing a year-on-year decrease of 1.1 percent, the data showed.
Last year’s figure was the lowest since 2013, when the trains on average carried 623,000 passengers per day.
Meanwhile, the number of passengers on Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) system last year on average rose an annual 2.9 percent to about 2.02 million per day, a record high.
The Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transport (KMRT) system last year carried an average of 172,000 riders per day, a year-on-year increase of 4.5 percent and a record high for the system.
Taipei’s MRT has five lines throughout the capital, while the KMRT has two.
The average daily ridership of Taiwan’s rail systems last year was almost 3 million, a rise of 2.5 percent, the DGBAS said.
The average number of riders on public buses last year edged up 0.1 percent to 3.34 million, the DGBAS said.
However, despite the increase in the use of public transport, gasoline and diesel sales last year rose 3 percent year-on-year, as a fall in international crude oil prices lifted fuel consumption, the DGBAS said.
Last year, fuel prices fell 5.9 percent from 2015, when fuel prices plunged 25 percent from the previous year, it said.
In addition, the number of passenger vehicles on the nation’s highways last year rose 6 percent year-on-year due to the lower fuel costs, it said.
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