Taipei MRT - a beautiful life

With a population density that is roughly twice Philadelphia’s, Taipei and the national government were smart to have the foresight to invest heavily in the Metro Rapid Transit (MRT) system in the last couple of decades. The pay-off is a city with modest on-street congestion that allows mobility regardless of what mode you choose, a convenient and profitable transit system and seemingly strong economic development around transit hubs. The metro consists of 101 stations on nine lines that currently cover 72 miles of track. There are currently another 44 stations and 32 miles of track under construction.

The Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation was created in 1994 to operate the mass transit infrastructure developed by the City and Federal Governments. The corporation is essentially a government owned company with 74 percent of share belonging to Taipei City, 17 percent to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, nine percent to New Taipei City and about one third of one percent by a consortium of banks and Tan Eng Iron Works. The corporation runs at a profit with revenue from the fare box, station stores, revenue from Taipei Arena, parking lots, underground shopping malls and advertising revenue exceeded expenses by USD$26 million in 2011. The infrastructure, including rolling stock, is planned, designed and constructed by the Department of Rapid Transit Systems.  This separation means that MRT, as the operator, has no capital expenses. The MRT’s contract with the City requires that it pay rent based on machinery replacement costs and four percent of operating income into the Taipei Metropolitan Area Rapid Transit Fixed Asset Replacement Fund.  The fund can only be used to replace equipment.  At the end of 2011 the fund balance was nearly US$1 billion.

MRT also has the advantage of lower personnel and benefit costs than systems in US, Europe and Australia. The system has seen growth every year since 1996 with daily trips surpassing 1.5 million in 2011 and the 5 billionth system trip being carried in February of 2012.

The MRT’s president, Gwa-guang Tan believes that Metro should provide a beautiful life for his customers, a safe and convenient system isn’t good enough.   

Discussing the MRT with President Tan

The Taipei Metro has the distinct advantage of being a relatively new system. It leverages this advantage to provide some very attractive amenities, beyond its frequent service and affordable fares. Stations have immaculate bathrooms (think lobby bathrooms of a four star hotel) with significantly more facilities available for female passengers and family bathrooms in most stations.  Many stations include breastfeeding rooms, which can be accessed simply by pressing a bell for the station manager to provide access to a mother and child. 

In station breast feeding rooms feature a sofa, side table, reclining chair and baby changing stations. 

The MRT is also the first Asian metro system to allow bikes on the system. Passenger volumes only allow for bikes on weekends and holidays and a few stations are just two crowded even then, but system is very bike friendly with significant parking facilities at its stations. 

A poster advertises the MRTs new high capacity bike parking system

I’ll write more in a separate post about payment technology, but it’s worth noting how MRT has used the smart card system to free customer service personnel from the booth and make them available throughout the station to help with customer concerns.