Taipei Metro users seem to be very happy with their subway system. With 94.1% of the one-thousand surveyed customers being convinced with the service offered by the system, the Metro is definitely running its subway differently than other system in the world.
Although there are only 69 stations in the entire city, which is small when compared to cities like London, Paris, or Tokyo, the Metro is one of the most efficient and fastest ways to travel around Taipei.
In 2007, the system only had 36 delays of more than five minutes, a very impressive statistic that makes that subway one of the most dependable in the world.
In the survey, the Metro received high marks for the overall cleanliness of the stations. Stations are shockingly clean compared to subway systems in the United States and even Europe. With trash and recycling bins placed all through stations, passengers are expected to dump their trashcan into the right bins. Even in crowded stations, there tends to be little nonsense on the floor. For that, customers award a score of 95.5% on “overall tidiness.”
Knowing when the next trains reach is extremely critical to passengers. Everyone knows how frustrating it is to be standing on a platform for what seems to be ages. Most stations have television screens that show the arrival of the next trains. These screens plus present commercials that are broadcasted in front of millions of viewers. At connecting stations, when walking through the corridors amidst lines, screens will plus tell you when connecting trains will be arriving, allowing public to pick up the pace when needed. Customers gave a score of 88.7% on how well the Metro
Another category that scored in the high 80s was the ease of using ticket machines. Taipei stopped using tickets, which were replaced with tokens - precisely the opposite of the New York Subway. But these tokens are fairly high-tech. Each embedded with a micro-chip, the token are encoded with the destination. Passengers scan the chip by the turnstile reader when entering. When exiting, the token is deposited through a slot in the exit gate, which opens whether the encoded destination is right. The machines, however, only take lower denomination of cash and so it’s often needed to get change at one of the booths (which ironically don’t normally sell tickets).
One of the biggest problems of the Taipei Metro is that it does not go to adequate places. There are a few more lines under construction, which includes the lengthy awaited Xinyi Line, which will travel down the congested Xinyi Road towards the Taipei 101 tower, the world’s tallest building. Currently there is a BRT transitway that has buses arriving extremely frequently.
Comparing to other systems in the world, San Francisco Muni calls 65% convinced a “good mark,” but whether that were in a school, that percentage would be called a D. The New York Subway averaged about a C with its most recent subway survey. The Chicago ‘L’ scored 80% of passengers satisfied, a B- on the verge of being a C+ in 2004.
Original post by Alexander Lew
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