Page 230 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Kim, Junghwa. Li, Yeun-Touh. Schmöcker, Jan-Dirk.

3. Data

3.1 Station Accessibility by Region

One of the issues at stake would be intraregional station accessibility; Su et al. (2012) discusses
that five out of eight stations are located in suburbs and far away from the CBD (central business
district) area (except Taipei, Banciao, and Zuoying); where they found intercity travelers from
around these stations are less willing to use THSR. In terms of this, the THSR stations which
located in a peripheral location did not have a direct transit connection with its corresponding
CBD at the beginning. This has reduced the travel time benefits in many cases compared to
conventional rail. For example, the traveling time from Taipei to Tainan is 110 min, but from
Tainan HSR station to downtown requires a traveling time around 35-40 min. Therefore, the
lack of access to these HSR stations needs to be solved; THSR operators realized that creating
a seamless journey for their travels is essential.

To this end, THSR has been working on improving its station accessibility since the operation.
By cooperating with other stakeholders, THSR increased the level of service of access links and
implemented new feeder lines. The reduced access/egress time to stations enhanced station
accessibility. Table 2 indicates the time and types of access links to THSR. Four categories of
access mode could be distinguished, MRT (mass rapid transit), TR (Taiwan Railway), BRT (bus
rapid transit), and free shuttle buses offered by THSR. Considering the low cost and efficiency of
deployment, THSR attempted to use BRT and shuttle buses which delivered a direct connection
between THSR station and its corresponding CBD at the beginning years of 2007 and 2008. MRT
and new feeder line constructed by TR takes longer construction time/cost, but expects higher
capacity and frequency. We note that in a few stations, the shuttle bus had been suspended
soon after the railway links (MRT and TR) began their operation.

Table 2. Access Modes for THSR station

Note:
• Superscript denotes stations which located within / close to CBD
1
2
• Superscript denotes stations located in suburb areas
• Number within parentheses indicates actual or scheduled year/month of
opening, where superscript* denotes links suspended after a new link connects
to stations
• ●: Links implemented / exist before THSR

• ◎: New links after THSR opened
• ○: Links currently under construction

228 360.revista de alta velocidad