| 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:
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.
