The government of New Taipei City was founded in 2010 as a separate administrative entity covering a ring surrounding the core of Taipei. It serves a region that was characterised by lower population density than the urban core, not helped by poor public transport access. As soon as it was set up, the administration started to put forward ambitious plans to catch up with Taipei’s much more developed metro network and set up New Taipei Metro Corp as its own organisation in 2018 to operate the new lines.
‘Our lines function as feeder routes to the existing lines of Taipei Rapid Transit Corp. Despite the 4 million inhabitants that make New Taipei the most populous municipality in Taiwan, we have a much lower population density in our area’, NTMC President Kuo-Chi Wu told Railway Gazette International in New Taipei on May 28.
**New Taipei Model**
‘We only have a medium capacity network, either light rail or metro lines. It is very challenging for us to make our operations financially feasible. Our total ridership on the Danhai and Ankeng light rail lines and the operational phase of the Circular Line metro was 100 000 passengers on an average day in May. As a comparison, Taipei Metro’s ridership was around 2 million passengers a day at the same time, meaning that we have much lower ticket revenues than Taipei Metro’, Wu explained.
But to ensure passengers are not treated differently, the government of New Taipei City decided to offer the same fares as TRTC, with a single journey ticket ranging between NT$20 and NT$65.
‘Then we calculated the reasonable operational cost for each journey for us and reached an agreement with the government of New Taipei City to give us subsidy to augment the gap between the reasonable and actual fares.
However, NTMC has other sources of income, including advertising and renting out shops and facilities at stations.
‘To support viable operations with this low ridership and therefore smaller revenues, we decided to develop a different model compared to Taipei Metro – what we call the New Taipei Model’, Wu explained.
‘We made sure to create fewer divisions compared to TRTC, therefore our management staff is also much leaner, resulting in a quicker decision making process. This also lets us use fewer employees, each of whom are responsible for more areas [of work].
**Locally sourced spare parts**
‘We are committed to using a high level of smart technology, automation and artificial intelligence to reduce employee workflow. We also introduced several “no-staff” stops on the two light rail lines to further reduce overheads’, Wu said.
‘We are working with domestic suppliers to source spare parts locally to further rationalise expenditure. For example, purchasing one set of sliding doors for a Circular Line platform screen door from the original supplier cost us NT$550 000. We can now source the same glass for maintenance from the local market for NT$40 000, so 14 times cheaper.
**Keeping fares attractive**
‘We have very high private vehicle usage in New Taipei City, unfortunately. Residents in many areas haven’t got access to rail mass transit lines, so they got used to driving their own vehicles. Now it is very difficult to persuade them to change their habits and switch to the new metro and light rail lines,’ Wu explained.
‘We see the low prices as the main catalyst to encourage users to shift to our services. And it has been pretty successful so far, as the ridership on our three operational lines is steadily growing, with an average rate of 4% per quarter.’
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The government of New Taipei City was founded in 2010 as a separate administrative entity covering a ring surrounding the core of Taipei. It serves a region that was characterised by lower population density than the urban core, not helped by poor public transport access. As soon as it was set up, the administration started to put forward ambitious plans to catch up with Taipei’s much more developed metro network and set up New Taipei Metro Corp as its own organisation in 2018 to operate the new lines.
‘Our lines function as feeder routes to the existing lines of Taipei Rapid Transit Corp. Despite the 4 million inhabitants that make New Taipei the most populous municipality in Taiwan, we have a much lower population density in our area’, NTMC President Kuo-Chi Wu told Railway Gazette International in New Taipei on May 28.
**New Taipei Model**
‘We only have a medium capacity network, either light rail or metro lines. It is very challenging for us to make our operations financially feasible. Our total ridership on the Danhai and Ankeng light rail lines and the operational phase of the Circular Line metro was 100 000 passengers on an average day in May. As a comparison, Taipei Metro’s ridership was around 2 million passengers a day at the same time, meaning that we have much lower ticket revenues than Taipei Metro’, Wu explained.
But to ensure passengers are not treated differently, the government of New Taipei City decided to offer the same fares as TRTC, with a single journey ticket ranging between NT$20 and NT$65.
‘Then we calculated the reasonable operational cost for each journey for us and reached an agreement with the government of New Taipei City to give us subsidy to augment the gap between the reasonable and actual fares.
However, NTMC has other sources of income, including advertising and renting out shops and facilities at stations.
‘To support viable operations with this low ridership and therefore smaller revenues, we decided to develop a different model compared to Taipei Metro – what we call the New Taipei Model’, Wu explained.
‘We made sure to create fewer divisions compared to TRTC, therefore our management staff is also much leaner, resulting in a quicker decision making process. This also lets us use fewer employees, each of whom are responsible for more areas [of work].
**Locally sourced spare parts**
‘We are committed to using a high level of smart technology, automation and artificial intelligence to reduce employee workflow. We also introduced several “no-staff” stops on the two light rail lines to further reduce overheads’, Wu said.
‘We are working with domestic suppliers to source spare parts locally to further rationalise expenditure. For example, purchasing one set of sliding doors for a Circular Line platform screen door from the original supplier cost us NT$550 000. We can now source the same glass for maintenance from the local market for NT$40 000, so 14 times cheaper.
**Keeping fares attractive**
‘We have very high private vehicle usage in New Taipei City, unfortunately. Residents in many areas haven’t got access to rail mass transit lines, so they got used to driving their own vehicles. Now it is very difficult to persuade them to change their habits and switch to the new metro and light rail lines,’ Wu explained.
‘We see the low prices as the main catalyst to encourage users to shift to our services. And it has been pretty successful so far, as the ridership on our three operational lines is steadily growing, with an average rate of 4% per quarter.’