Below are the top ten busiest stations in the
Taipei MRT in 2011, according to the number of times each station was entered
and exited.
1. Taipei Main Station Bannan, Danshui 113,478,000
2. Taipei City Hall Bannan 43,101,000
3. Ximen Bannan,
Xiaonanmen 42,980,000
4. Zhongxiao Fuxing Bannan, Wenhu 37,358,000
5. Xinpu Bannan 29,763,000
6. Zhongxiao Dunhua Bannan 26,897,000
7. Danshui Danshui 26,564,000
8. Jiantan Danshui 25,753,000
9. Zhongshan Danshui 22,603,000
10. Banqiao Bannan 21,660,000
The top four stations aren’t particularly
surprising, given that they are either major transit hubs (Main Station, City
Hall), commercial areas (City Hall, Ximen, Zhongxiao Fuxing) or job centers
(Main Station, City Hall). More
surprising is the popularity of Xinpu, located in an area with no destinations
that I know of. Anyone who’s ridden the
Bannan Line into Banqiao will have noticed that the train empties out at Xinpu;
what’s surprising is that this translates into more boardings and exits than in
stations like Danshui or Zhongxiao Dunhua that are next to major
destinations. The only explanation I can
think of is that Xinpu is next to Provincial Highway 64, linking it to western
Zhonghe and Xinzhuang, making it a logical transfer point for bus riders from
those areas headed towards central Taipei.
This suggests that MRT lines in Xinzhuang and western Zhonghe areas
should get high ridership, though the Xinzhuang Line so far has been pretty
disappointing.
Everything else on this list isn’t too
surprising, though I didn’t expect Danshui and especially Jiantan to be less
popular. I would be curious to see how
much traffic through these stations, and in fact through all stations in the
top 10, consists of bus transfers- as popular as both are as leisure destinations
I suspect a large portion of their popularity is from transfers.
Also to be expected is the preponderance of
Bannan Line stations, given how many major destinations the Bannan Line passes
and that it is the only line to connect with every other line. Even more crucially, it is the only high-capacity
line in Eastern Taipei, and the only line to connect Eastern Taipei with very
high-population areas in the west.
The Wenhu Line, with much lower capacity than
the other MRT lines, unsurprisingly only has one station in the top ten, the
one it shares with the Bannan Line. The
absence of the Zhonghe and Xindian branches of the Danshui Line and the Luzhou
Line is unsurprising as well, given that those lines all run half as frequently
as the Danshui and Bannan lines.
Below are the least-used stations in the
Taipei MRT:
89. Nangang Software Park Wenhu 621,000
88. Xiaobitan Xiaobitan 1,261,000
87. Wanfang Community Wenhu 1,384,000
86. Dahu Park Wenhu 1,730,000
85. Xinhai Wenhu 2,036,000
84. Zhongyi Danshui 2,104,000
83. Fuxinggang Danshui 2,327,000
82. Linguang Wenhu 2,589,000
81. Muzha Wenhu 2,882,000
80. Wende Wenhu 3,013,000
Again, none of these are very surprising:
most of these stations are on the medium-capacity Wenhu Line, and most of them
are located on the most distant parts of the MRT system. Many of them are close to other, more popular
stations (Nangang Software Park, Wanfang Community), or are in areas that are
only partially developed (Nangang Software Park, both Danshui Line stations).
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