Taipei MRT Ridership by Station in 2013

Below is a list of the most heavily used MRT stations in Taipei in 2013, by the total number of boardings and alightings at each station.  The data comes from the Taipei Department of Transportation.

Station	Line	Exits+Entrances
Taipei Main Station	Danshui, Bannan	114,065,000
Taipei City Hall	Bannan	47,641,000
Ximen	Bannan, Xiaonanmen	43,468,000
Zhongxiao Fuxing	Bannan, Wenhu	38,390,000
Zhongxiao Dunhua	Bannan	29,524,000
Danshui	Danshui	29,037,000
Xinpu	Bannan	26,768,000
Banqiao	Bannan	25,420,000
Jiantan	Danshui	25,387,000
Dingxi	Zhonghe-Xinlu	22,743,000

The top seven stations remain the same as in 2012, but there's been some movement among the bottom three.  First, Banqiao continued to gain users, and overtook Jiantan to become the 7th most popular station in the system, just shy of Xinpu, which saw its ridership fall slightly.  Banqiao remains the only station opened after 2001 to be among the top 10.  In addition, Dingxi replaced Zhongshan as the 10th most popular station, presumably boosted by the Zhonghe Line's increased frequency and new direct connection to the Xinzhuang Line.  Dingxi is the 4th station in New Taipei to make the list, and the first on the Zhonghe-Xinlu Line.  Since the Dingxi area has little to attract people from outside Yonghe, Dingxi is almost certainly an origin station rather than a destination, suggesting that the Zhonghe-Xinlu Line feeds passengers into other parts of the MRT system rather than take them directly to their destination.  

As in pervious years, the Bannan Line was the dominant line in the MRT system, with 7 of the top ten stations and all of the top 5.  The Danshui Line remains the second most important, even though its share of the top ten dropped from 4 stations to 3.  The Zhonghe-Xinlu Line just broke into the top ten with one station, while the Wenhu Line only made it onto the list through its transfer station with the Bannan Line.
Below are the 10 least-used stations for 2013:

Station	Line	Exits+Entrances
Nangang Software Park	Wenhu	789,000
Wanfang Community	Wenhu	1,363,000
Xiaobitan	Xiaobitan	1,413,000
Dahu Park	Wenhu	1,900,000
Zhongyi	Danshui	1,990,000
Xinhai	Wenhu	2,078,000
Xianse Temple	Zhonghe-Xinlu	2,137,000
Sanchong	Zhonghe-Xinlu	2,202,000
Fuxinggang	Danshui	2,455,000
Linguang	Wenhu	2,603,000

As with the top 10, the bottom 10 are mostly the same as last year, with the exception of Touqianzhuang being replaced by Linguang.  This leaves the Wenhu Line dominating the list with 5 stations, while the Danshui and Zhonghe-Xinlu Lines are tied for second with 2 each.
Below are the average number of riders passing through all the stations on each line.  Average ridership for all stations grew by 4.8% compared to 2012.

Line	Av. Exits+Entrances/Stations	% Change
Bannan	20,690,000	2.0%
Danshui/Xindian	13,596,000	N/A
Xindian	11,053,000	3.2%
Danshui	15,101,000	2.6%
Zhonghe-Xinlu	9,268,000	N/A
Zhonghe	17,325,000	10.6%
Zhongxiao Xinsheng to Daqiaotou	9.944,000	26.6%
Luzhou	7,137,000	8.2%
Xinzhuang	4,763,000	8.8%
Wenhu	5,956,000	2.2%
Neihu	5,152,000	6.3%
Muzha	6,759,000	-0.7%

Unsurprisingly, the Bannan Line was the most heavily used line, followed by the Danshui-Xindian Line, the Zhonghe-Xinlu Line and finally the Wenhu Line.  This reflects how many stations each line has in the top ten.  Ridership was most uneven on the Zhonghe-Xinlu Line, with the Zhonghe Line having the heaviest ridership, the trunk section of the Xinzhuang Line seeing mediocre ridership and the Luzhou and especially the Xinzhuang branches having very low ridership. The Xinzhuang Branch was the second least-used section of the MRT, followed only by the Muzha section of the Wenhu Line.
Growth was very uneven in 2013.  The largest gains in ridership were on the newest lines, with the central section of the Xinzhuang Line between Zhongxiao Xinsheng and Daqiaotou growing faster than any other section of the MRT, and Songjiang Nanjing gaining more users than any other station, followed by Xingtian Temple.  This was presumably the result of the improved connection to the Zhonghe Line, though some of the increase may also have been caused by people adjusting their travel habits to take advantage of the new line- for example, people may be more willing to take jobs near the Xinzhuang Line that they were before.
The Zhonghe Line saw the second-largest gains after the trunk section of the Xinzhuang Line, presumably from increased frequency and the faster connection to the Xinzhuang Line and east Taipei.  However, the increase was less than half that of the Xinzhuang trunk line, suggesting that the Xinzhuang Line gained more from the new connection.  The Xinzhuang and Luzhou branches also gained quite a bit of ridership compared to 2012, presumably mostly from people adjusting to the new lines.
The Wenhu Line also saw uneven growth, with the Neihu section growing faster than the system average while the Muzha section losing passengers, especially in its central Taipei section.  Even with this decline- which follows a decline last year- the Muzha Line still has much higher ridership than it did before the Neihu extension opened.
Finally, although it doesn't appear on the above chart, the central section of the Danshui Line (that is, from Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to Shuanglian) also lost ridership.  Part of this may have been caused by Zhonghe and Xindian Line passengers switching to the Xinzhuang Line to get to central and eastern Zhongshan District rather than transferring to buses at Zhongshan, Shuanglian or Minquan West Rd. stations, though the decline at NTU Hospital and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall suggest it may be caused by other factors.
Overall, trends in 2013 were positive: newer, lesser used parts of the MRT gained ridership, which balanced out losses in more heavily used sections.  However, ridership remains very uneven, with the Bannan Line connecting to far more destinations than any other line.  To even out ridership Taipei should focus on developing destinations near central areas along less heavily used sections of the MRT.  For example, developing Minquan West Rd. as a destination would attract more riders from the underused Xinzhuang and Luzhou branches, as well as from the not especially crowded Xinzhuang trunk and northern Danshui Line.

Taiwan's Transportation Mode Share

The chart below shows what kinds of transport Taiwanese used to travel in 2012 for trips for a specific purpose that exceeded 500 meters, according to the same Ministry of Transportation survey I referenced when I looked at why Taiwanese don't take mass transit.

Mode	% in 2012	% change vs. 2009
Private vehicle	72.6%	-1.0%
Mass transit	15.0%	+1.6%
Walking or cycling	12.4%	-0.7%

And this is the mode share for commuting to either work or school:

Mode	% in 2012	% change vs. 2009
Private vehicle	74.1%	+0.6%
Mass transit	18.3%	+1.2%
Walking or cycling	7.7%	-1.7%

Unsurprisingly, private motorized transport- i.e., cars or scooters- are dominant.  However, this rate is lower than what I've heard of in developed countries (I think 90-95% in the US, 80% in Japan, though I haven't been able to find a good source for comparable data).  My guess is Taiwan's relatively low rate of private vehicle trips is the result of its density, and maybe from its lower average income.
While mass transit is growing more popular, a more unfortunate trend is a decrease in walking and cycling, especially to get to work or school.  I can't say why this is occurring, though it certainly suggests Taiwan's terrible sidewalks aren't improving much.
Below are the percentages for each specific form of transportation, with growth rates since 2011.

Mode	% in 2012, all trips	change vs. 2011	% in 2012, commutes	change vs. 2011
Scooter	47.8%	-0.7%	49.4%	+0.1%
Car	23.2%	-0.9%	22.7%	-0.9%
Bus	9.0%	+0.8%	11.5%	+0.7%
Walking	7.2%	+0.5%	3.9%	0
Bicycle	5.2%	+0.3%	3.8%	+0.5%
MRT	3.9%	0	4.8%	-0.2%
Train	1.3%	+0.1%	1.6%	+0.1%
Taxi	0.6%	-0.1%	0.2%	0
HSR	0.1%	-0.1%	n/a	n/a

Also unsurprisingly, scooters are by far the favorite mode in Taiwan, though they don't quite account for half of all trips.  For mass transit, buses (which include highway and freeway coaches as well as city buses) are the most popular form, which is also not unexpected given Taiwan's limited rail coverage outside the Taipei Basin.  More surprising to me is the popularity of cycling, despite the poor cycling conditions in most Taiwanese cities.
In contrast to the period between 2009 and 2012, trends between 2011 and 2012 have mostly been positive- according to the report's introduction the 2012 was the first year that public transit and non-motorized transit both gained mode share.  The MRT was an exception to this trend, however, and didn't gain mode share despite the opening of the Xinzhuang Line- in fact, it lost a little for commutes.  Buses have been doing pretty well, however.

Why Taiwanese Don't Take Mass Transit

A couple months ago the Ministry of Transportation released the results of a survey on transit use.  The full report is available here.  There's lots of interesting data there, much of which I would like to comment on later, but first I want to start with the section about why Taiwanese don't take mass transit.  The results are summarized below (note that respondents could choose multiple answers):

Reason	% in 2012	% change vs. 2009
Driving is more convenient	45.7%	-8.1%
Origin/destination too far from a station	35.0%	5.6%
Unnecessary because destination is close	20.4%	3.2%
Arrival times inconvenient/ too few	12.0%	1.8%
Waiting/transferring takes too much time	9.9%	n/a
Driving is faster	6.4%	n/a
Too many transfers	4.8%	1.2%
Not used to mass transit	4.6%	1.9%
More expensive than alternatives	1.8%	0.1%
Walking/ cycling is healthier	1.1%	-0.2%
Mass transit is too slow	1.0%	n/a

I have a few problems with these categories- "inconvenient" is too vague a category to be really informative, for one- but there are still a few points I'd like to make.
First, most people appear willing to use transit if it suits their needs.  Not being in the "habit" of taking transit, often cited as a reason certain places have low transit mode share, was chosen by a mere 4.6% of the respondents.  All the other reasons cited are related to convenience and could potentially be mitigated.  This suggests there is a lot of potential for mode share expansion, and little opposition to transit per se as often seen in the United States.
Second, a surprisingly large percentage of the respondents feel they are too far from any transit station, including bus stops.  This suggests that expanding Taiwan's bus networks should be a high priority, to ensure coverage for most of the population.  Given Taiwan's density and geography this should be more practical than in most other countries.  Improving the pedestrian environment to make walking faster and distances from stations therefore feel shorter may also help.  Interestingly, the number of people who feel they are too far from a stop has gone up by 5% over the past four years, though I don't know if there has actually been a decrease in bus service, or if people who avoided transit for other reasons in previous years have been convinced to switch so that those who feel stations are too far make up a larger proportion of those who don't take transit.
In terms of service quality, low frequencies are a big problem, accounting for the fourth and fifth most common complaints.  I've personally found this to be true everywhere outside Greater Taipei, and often even in Taipei itself.  However, not too many people seem to feel that driving is actually faster than transit, which I find somewhat surprising.
I would have also been interested to know if people avoided transit because of crowding, cleanliness or the inconvenience of carrying luggage, but at least on a larger scale this survey shows Taiwan should focus primarily on service quality to attract more transit riders.

Taipei MRT Ridership in 2012

2012's top ten stations are listed below, ranked by the number of times each station was entered and exited.

Station	Line	Exits+Entrances
Taipei Main Station	Red, Blue	114,659,000
Taipei City Hall	Blue	45,723,000
Ximen	Blue, Xiaonanmen	41,935,000
Zhongxiao Fuxing	Blue, Brown	37,751,000
Zhongxiao Dunhua	Blue	28,972,000
Danshui	Red	27,884,000
Xinpu	Blue	26,980,000
Jiantan	Red	25,293,000
Banqiao	Blue	24,531,000
Zhongshan	Red	22,971,000

The most noteworthy change from last year is Xinpu's drop from 5th place to 7th place, presumably because some of the people from Xinzhuang who used to transfer to the MRT there now instead can use the Xinzhuang Line.  Banqiao also moved up a place, overtaking Zhongshan.  No station opened after 2006 has yet entered the top 10.
The least-used stations in 2012 are as follows:

Station	Line	Exits+Entrances
Nangang Software Park	Brown	687,000
Xiaobitan	Xiaobitan	1,217,000
Wanfang Community	Brown	1,372,000
Xianse Temple	Orange	1,778,000
Sanchong	Orange	1,809,000
Dahu Park	Brown	1,842,000
Zhongyi	Red	2,047,000
Xinhai	Brown	2,065,000
Fuxinggang	Red	2,462,000
Touqianzhuang	Orange	2,539,000

As should be expected, many Muzha-Neihu line stations are among the bottom ten.  The Muzha-Neihu line is lower capacity than the other lines, with no station other than Zhongxiao Fuxing even approaching 20 million entrances and exits every year, but with trains and stations being crowded regardless, so this is to be expected.  More disappointing (though not surprising, as I will explain below) is the presence of three stations on the high-capacity Xinzhuang Line.
Below is the ridership of the average station on each line:

Blue:                                      20,283
Danshui/ Zhonghe/ Xindian:    13,592
Xinzhuang (incl Luzhou):         6,153
Brown:                                   5,828

And the ridership for separate branches:

Danshui:                                 14,721
Xindian:                                   9,660
Zhonghe:                                 15,665
Xinzhuang (Xinbei section):       4,377
Luzhou:                                   6,598

The blue line has much denser usage than any other line, while the Xinzhuang Line has the least-dense usage, even less than the lower-capacity Wenhu Line.  This confirms what the list of least-used stations suggests: the Xinzhuang Line is very underused compared to other lines.  Presumably its ridership will grow a little more as more people try it or move to Xinzhuang with the intention of using it, and as new lines increase the usefulness of the system as a whole.  But even if it does grow, this is a very low point to start from.
The Xinzhuang Line passes through very dense areas that should have plenty of demand for an MRT line into Taipei City, so why is it faring so poorly?  A major issue is probably its route.  Rather than taking a direct path from Xinzhuang and south Sanchong into Taipei, the line makes a long detour north to join the Luzhou Line and enter Taipei under the Taipei Bridge.  While this looks elegant on a road map, it forces riders to take a roundabout route to get to most of the rest of the MRT system, especially the blue line.  This means that many Xinzhuang residents may find that taking the bus or driving is actually faster than taking the MRT, and that those who do choose to take it will be forced to spend more time in transit.  If the Xinzhuang Line had been built so that it crossed into Taipei under the Zhongxiao Bridge or the Zhongxing Bridge we would certainly see much greater ridership on the Xinzhuang Line, and therefore in the MRT system as a whole.  On the other hand, the Luzhou Branch has a much more direct route into Taipei, but also has low ridership compared to other branch lines, so perhaps the scooter-oriented nature of urban development west of the Danshui River is to blame.

Kaohsiung MRT's Most and Least Popular Stations

Below is a list of the six most popular KMRT stations in 2011, along with the most popular station on the orange line:

Station	Line	Exits+Entrances
Kaohsiung Train Station	Red	9,759,000
Zuoying	Red	7,720,000
Kaohsiung Arena	Red	7,348,000
Sanduo Commercial Dist.	Red	6,898,000
Central Park	Red	6,040,000
Formosa Boulevard	Red/Orange	4,056,000
(Xiziwan	Orange	2,250,000)

And the five least popular:

Station	Line	Exits+Entrances
Qingpu	Red	510,000
Qiaotou Sugar Refinery	Red	586,000
Houjing	Red	759,000
Dadong	Orange	829,000
Fengshan J.H.S.	Orange	943,000

As nearly everyone familiar with the KMRT might have guessed, these numbers are far below those for Taipei's MRT.  The most popular station has only middling usage by Taipei's standards, and only one station in Taipei's MRT would make it onto the list of Kaohsiung's least-used stations.
Rather than go into why Kaohsiung's MRT has underperformed- for the record I think the reason is that the city is too car/ scooter friendly, and is not hemmed in by mountains like Taipei and so can sprawl more- I'd like to look at what this says about the system's design.  Most obviously, the three least-used stations are on the northern end of the red line, even though the red line gets heavier usage overall than the orange line.  Moreover, this section of the red line parallels the TRA's main line.  The TRA could have provided comparable rapid transit service to this area by adding stations and frequency, and at most by adding a third track, which presumably would have been far cheaper than extending the two-tracked KMRT.  The KMRT could have had its terminus at the Nanzih TRA station, where a reasonably easy transfer could have been designed.  The lower construction costs would have cut down on the depreciation the KMRT is now paying without significantly effecting its income.
Second, these numbers suggest that the orange line's alignment was poorly chosen.  Aside from stations that provide transfers to other mass transit (Kaohsiung Train Station and Zuoying) and Kaohsiung Arena (whose popularity I can't explain), the most popular stations are Central Park and Sanduo, both of which have nearly a million more yearly passengers than Formosa Boulevard.  I'm not very familiar with Kaohsiung, but it is also my impression that this area is Kaohsiung's commercial center, hosting several large malls and commercial districts.  The orange line might have gotten more ridership if it crossed the red line at one of these stations, since it would connect passengers directly to a popular destination rather than forcing them to transfer at Formosa Boulevard.  It also would have had less overlap with the TRA's Kaohsiung-Pingdong line, thereby doing more to expand rail transit coverage in Kaohsiung.  Even though this would have meant that passengers traveling between the more popular stations on the red line's northern half and the areas served by the orange line would have a longer trip, these areas would have been almost as easily served by the Kaohsiung-Pingdong Line, which is less than a kilometer away from the orange line for its entire length.  Even without the nearby rail line, I suspect a direct trip to somewhere, longer trip to other places type of alignment would have worked better than no direct trip to any major destination alignment the KMRT currently has.

Taipei MRT's Most and Least Popular Stations

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).