The Transportation Bureau of Taichung City Government continues to promote i-Door. As one of the implementation projects, the City Government made efforts to understand citizens’ needs and all available transportation resources in order to establish a bus network in the city. Last year, not only have some bus routes been modified, but also the Transportation Bureau has cooperated with the Tourism Bureau to launch the City’s first Taiwan Tourist Shuttle route. As for this year, apart from launching a number of new bus routes, the Transportation Bureau will promote the trunk line buses program to connect major transportation hubs as an optimization of the entire bus network.
Director of Transportation Bureau Yeh Chao-fu expressed that, to integrate bus network with the METRO Green Line, the Transportation Bureau had created 7 new bus routes and modified 12 surrounding bus routes to shorten citizens’ walking distance to transit. In addition, Route 800 and Route 53 which highly overlap with the METRO Green Line will be converted to Route Green 1, Route Green 2 and Route Green 3. There are currently 99 bus routes along the Green Line and the Transportation Bureau is still taking stock of all bus routes and observing public demand for transportation. Last year, the Transportation Bureau launched three new bus routes – Route 245, Route 361 and Route 365 – in the center and remote areas of the city to facilitate commutation to offices, schools, and hospitals to enhance Taichung’s bus network.
Director Yeh further expressed that, oriented to the four benefits of “fairness and justice”, “supporting economically disadvantaged”, “energy saving and reducing carbon footprint” and “air pollution control”, the City Government has launched the “Double-Ten Bus Rides” program. That is, to encourage the use of public transportation, citizens who tap the card to get on the bus will have a free ride for up to 10 km or, if the ride is for more than 10 km, only NT$10 will be charged. At the moment, more than 1.43 million citizens have received this “citizen only” special offer by linking and registering their cards. It is expected that the use of public transportation will be further enhanced. In addition, upon implementation of this citizen only program, the Transportation Bureau has been analyzing the backend trip information to collect the ride usage data, on which bus routes and schedules are reviewed and modified accordingly.
According to the card tapping data, the number of Taichung citizens as percent of total passenger number is 80%. Among them, students have the highest percentage (51%), followed by the elderly (19%). As for the statistics on bus routes, the routes that the students take most frequently are Route 219, Route 232 and Route 200, whereas the elderly take Route 267, Route 252 and Route 269 most frequently. Transportation Bureau will continue to analyze the riding status of different bus routes, observe the characteristics of passengers of all ages, and modify bus routes, intervals and hours in order enhance Taichung City’s public transportation services and construct a complete bus network to meet citizens riding demands.
Transportation Bureau expressed that, to enhance bus services, the “trunk line bus” approach will be launched at Fuxing Road, Zhongxing Road, Taiwan Boulevard, Zhongqing Road, Chongde Road and Beitun Road. The bus routes will connect major transportation hubs, including METRO Green Line, TRA, THSR and transit centers. Clear route numbering and vehicle painting, as well as color identification of waiting facilities at stops along the route, make it more intuitive for people to choose a route on the corridor. These routes will also be operated with accessible vehicles and, by reviewing the transportation capacity of all routes in parallel with the corridor, adjustments will be further made to vehicle deployment. This will not only facilitate the arrangement of trunk line buses in terms of stability and frequentness, but also enhance the overall bus service standards and riding quality.
The Transportation Bureau added that the City Government had been continuously integrating interdepartmental resources to optimize local bus services. For example, last year, the Transportation Bureau has actively cooperated with the Tourism Bureau to transform Route 11 into Taiwan Tourist Shuttle – Taichung Midtown Bus Loop route in order to, through the positioning of tourism services, increase the customer base. In addition to enhancing the service quality, the City Government also continues to recruit talents to join the urban passenger transport sector; and signed the Declaration on Cooperation in Recruiting Bus Drivers with Taichung City Employment Services Offices to enhance the City’s public transportation service capacity.
As the pandemic still remains severe, Transportation Bureau would like remind everyone that, to protect ourselves and the others, all citizens should wear face masks, register real-name visit records via SMS and keep social distance when riding on the bus, METRO, TRA train, taxi and other public transportation vehicles.