Notes from Taiwan: Regional fare integration programs fuel Taiwan's strong ridership growth
Ian Griffiths is a board member and former Co-Executive Director of Seamless Bay Area and visited Taiwan in December with funding from the Wendy Tao Smart Cities Scholarship. He currently works for CPCS and serves on California’s SB 125 Transit Transformation Task Force. See his prior blog post on Taiwan here.
Taiwan’s TPASS and MegaCity transit pass programs provide unlimited access to regional rail, bikeshare, LRT/MRT systems, and local and intercity bus networks for just $20-$40 USD per month.
Taiwan’s new regional multi-agency transit pass programs, offering unlimited travel on all agencies and modes within metropolitan areas, have been key to the country’s strong ridership regrowth post-pandemic. The programs, known as “TPASS” (or “MegaCity Pass” in greater Taipei), have led to a 16% increase in transit ridership nationwide within the first 10 months of implementation. In greater Taipei, the nation’s largest region of over 9 million residents, the program is also credited with reducing driving trips by 7.3%.
The rapid deployment and success of Taiwan’s multi-agency transit passes has been made possible by the central government providing significant new funding so that the passes can be offered to individuals at a low price – just US$20-$40 per month, depending on the region – and compensating local agencies for a significant share of potential lost of fare revenue.
As California and other North American regions consider transformative policies and funding that can quickly increase ridership and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Taiwan’s TPASS programs provide a powerful demonstration of the effectiveness of regional fare integration. Taiwan also shows how state funding, state leadership, and partnership with jurisdictions are all key elements to successful deployment fare integration programs in diverse regions with different needs and levels of transit service.
Early steps toward Fare Integration in Taiwan
Map showing Taiwan’s local and national transit systems, and outlines of the three primary metropolitan regions where TPASS was introduced, covering all modes within the region (except High Speed Rail) for one monthly price. Population statistics from 2020 Taiwan Census: https://www.geo-ref.net/ph/twn.htm)
Taiwan has a large number of transit providers across its interconnected 22 subnational jurisdictions, which include 3 counties, 3 cities, and 6 special municipalities. Each jurisdiction runs its own local transit service, which includes bus networks, and in some cases, metro (MRT), light rail (LRT), and ferry systems. In addition, The Taiwan Railway Corporation (known as Taiwan Railway Administration, or TRA, until 2024) runs extensive intercity rail service and the Taiwan High Speed Rail Consortium runs the country’s somewhat separate high speed rail network. Intercity buses are run by a mix of public and private operators. A common bikeshare system “YouBike” is available across the country, and is managed by local authorities.
Outside of the recently launched pass programs in the two years, there had been limited fare integration between operators and modes in Taiwan. Single journey tickets continue to be mostly limited to a single mode; transfer discounts are sometimes offered, such as for transferring from a MRT to a bus, but not universally.
Transit passes have traditionally been limited to a specific mode or single agency. TRA has long offered a monthly pass, limited to its rail network, and Taipei Metro offers 24hr, 48hr, 72hr and monthly passes that provide unlimited travel on the MRT, but excludes buses.
This began to change around 2018 when Taiwan’s two largest regions began to experiment with “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS) programs that provided riders with one ‘account’ to pay for multiple mobility needs, offered at single monthly price, akin to a monthly subscription. Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second city (pop 2.7m), launched a set of monthly passes called MeN-GO, offering unlimited travel on the City’s MRT, LRT, and buses, plus up to 30 minute bike share trips and up to 4 ferry trips per month.
Around the same time, two largest cities in the Taipei Region, Taipei City (pop. 2.6m) and New Taipei (pop. 4.3m), decided to develop a joint monthly pass, the “All Pass” offering unlimited travel on each of the cities’ Metro, LRT, and Bus systems, plus bikeshare rentals up to 30 minutes. The All Pass was funded fully by the local governments, with no contribution from the central government.
In both of these examples, passes were available for around $40 US per month (NT 1250-1300) per month, and each was successful at boosting ridership. (US incomes are about 40-50% higher than in Taiwan, so equivalent pricing in the US would be in the range of $55-$60 per month). Taipei’s All Pass boosted bus and metro ridership by about 3.2% in the first year, and Kaohsiung grew to sell more than 36,000 passes per month by 2019.
However, studies evaluating these programs recommended key changes in order to build more ridership and promote greater mode shift. A 2022 study of Taiwan’s early MaaS programs recommended that future programs most focus more on “access to newer modes, more frequent services, covering greater network areas”. Dr. Jason Chang, a professor of Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University, has recommended that in order to promote mode shift from scooters, the most prevalent form of private mobility in Taiwan, contributing disproportionately to pollution and road fatalities, the price of passes needed to be reduced to approximately US$1 per day or less.
Fare Integration becomes an election campaign promise
Building off the early programs, in 2022 local elections, mayoral candidates in the four major cities in the Taipei region – Taipei and New Taipei, plus Taoyuan and Keelung - picked up fare integration as an election issue. They campaigned on the idea of an expanded, improved pass program that covered a greater portion of the region, included more modes, and was available at a lower price.
TPASS promotional signs, visible throughout Taiwan - offering consistent branding, even though there are regional variations in the product tailored to each region.
Taiwan’s central government took up the idea and decided to offer funding for all-inclusive monthly passes in all parts of the country, supplementing local commitments. Following the local elections, more than two dozen “TPASS” programs were introduced across Taiwan - Greater Taipei’s pass program came to be known as the “MegaCity Pass”, whereas the pass programs in other parts of the country are simply known as “TPASS”. Passes were made available for different combinations of Taiwan’s counties to correspond with a person’s typical travel patterns - see this website for a full list of the programs and pricing.
The central government then deployed the program very quickly – by July 2023, six months after the election, passes were on sale in Taiwan’s largest three regions, shown in the map - Greater Taipei, Greater Taichung, and Greater Kaohsiung. By the end of 2023, passes were available in nearly every region of the country of 23 million people.
A key distinction of the new passes, compared to the earlier pass programs in Taipei and Kaohsiung, is that the TPASS and MegaCity Pass include not only unlimited local trips (bus, MRT, LRT, and bikeshare) but also unlimited trips on Taiwan’s intercity bus system and on TRA trains, within each metropolitan region – key services used for longer distance travel and many commuters. The passes do not include access to Taiwan’s High Speed Rail network.
Summary of funding of MegaCity Pass in the Taipei region (source: Taipei City Department of Transportation)
To fund the regional transit passes across the country for three years, from mid-2023 to 2025, the central government earmarked about US $610 million (NT $20 billion). Each transit agency continues to track ridership as it had before the pass. Shortfalls between actual fares collected and those ‘owed’ to based on usage are shared between the central government and local governments - the formula for the Taipei region is a 50-50 split between central and local governments for any shortfalls due to local transit usage, and 90-10 split for shortfalls due to regional transit usage.
Impact on Ridership
The multi-agency passes have been an undisputed ridership and political success. Nationwide, in the first 10 months of implementation, the program was attributed with increasing ridership by 16%.
Whereas all of Taiwan’s regions saw an increase in ridership, rural and smaller urban areas with lower initial transit use tended to see the greatest increases.
In greater Kaohsiung, where transit and bikeshare mode share was only 10% of all trips (much lower than greater Taipei), and where the TPASS was offered at a lower price of US$30/month (NT 999), ridership in the first 10 months increased by 20.5%. The decision to provide the pass at a lower cost in greater Kaohsiung was a result of additional subsidy provided by the local Kaohsiung government, in addition to the funding commitments of the central government.
In the more rural county of Hualien (pop. 300k), the pass, offered at a lower price reflecting the availability of fewer modes, led to ridership increases on buses of 69.8%.
In greater Taipei region of over 9 million, which already boasted a high transit mode share of over 30% of all trips, ridership grew by a still impressive 9% within the first 6 months of implementation of the “MegaCity Pass”. The greatest increases in ridership were witnessed on the Taoyuan Metro (34%), on intercity buses (13%) and on the bikeshare system (13%). Across the region, the pass reduced driving trips by 7.3%, exceeding the government’s target of reducing trips by 5%. Today, over 500,000 passes are sold each month in the Taipei region (Source: City of Taipei Departmetnt of Transportaion).
TPASS 2.0 and long-term sustainability
The success of the program in attracting riders has resulted in spending down the central government’s original budget of $610 million (NT 20 billion) faster than expected. However, the program has been very popular among the public, and the government has publicly stated that it wants to continue the program, as well as expand it to include shorter, 14-day passes, as well as passes specifically oriented toward tourists.
Continuation of the program appears dependent on both the central government and the local governments continue to fund the shortfall subsidy - for now, it looks set to continue. Local experts I spoke to indicated that keeping transit fares low in Taiwan has long been a popular political strategy, and the TPASS program is a way of providing many transit riders with discounts which save users between 30-50% of transit costs.
Conclusions and lessons for states like California
In contrast to the San Francisco Bay Area, the deployment of the TPASS fare integration program across Taiwan’s regions seems remarkably fast – in the span of less than one year, the government deployed monthly passes in all parts of the country, and then began to see ridership increases almost immediately. The rollout was accompanied by a highly visible promotion campaign, with digital and printed advertisements displayed across the country and in every part of the transit system.
This rapid deployment was aided by strong political support that TPASS enjoyed during local elections, which led active leadership from the Central Government in rolling out the program quickly and consistently in all parts of the country.
Interestingly, and in contrast to many other regions that have implemented regional fare integration, it didn’t rely on regional governing bodies or ‘network manager’ authorities, which don’t really exist at the regional scale in Taiwan (more on this topic in a future blog post). Instead, Taiwan’s central government, through its Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), engaged directly with each of the local county-level jurisdictions to develop the specific design of each region’s pass programs, essentially acting as the network manager for each region. Local experts I spoke to indicated that the close political alliances of key mayors in some of the regions, especially Taipei, where all four mayors hailed from the same party, also played a strong role in the rapid development of the pass programs.
TPASS promotion, alongside transit mascots, in Kaohsiung.
The central government defined what the key transit regions in the country were and a maximum price they wanted for the passes, and what level of matching subsidy would be expected from local agencies. Local agencies then a choice of whether or not to participate in the TPASS program and have a significant share of the financial risk covered by the central government. All jurisdictions have since agreed to participate in TPASS. What specific passes are offered in each region, as well as their price, was determined in partnership between the Central government and each of the different subnational agencies, and allowed for individual jurisdictions to provide additional funding to be able to offer passes at even more discounted levels.
In summary, three key factors stand out as essential to TPASS’s success, and are instructive lessons for states like California that are considering new policies and funding aimed at transforming transit:
Dedicated, substantial funding for fare integration to protect against revenue loss for local agencies.
Leadership and political will from the central government in defining clear desired outcomes of the program, and where necessary, stepping into the role of a ‘network manager’ for each region - leading facilitation and incentivizing coordination among the various regional operators to deliver the program in a timely manner.
Partnership with local governments to adapt the program to each region’s particular needs, allowing for different pricing, levels of local subsidy, and products to be included in each region’s TPASS offering.
People lining up to purchase tickets in a Taipei Metro station; the government’s “TPASS” program is visible, and is strongly marketed throughout the country, offering discounted monthly passes that provided unlimited trips on all modes in a metropolitan area.
Taiwan’s TPASS experience may offer lessons to states like California that are considering funding for policies like fare integration but that lack appropriate regional governance structures in many parts of the state. In relatively well-organized regions like the Bay Area, which has an existing monthly pass program in a pilot phase – the Clipper BayPass – and an emerging network management structure, state funding for a TPASS-like program could be directed toward scaling up existing programs, or lowering the price. In other parts of the state, the state would need to do more work, in partnership with local agencies, to define what are the most important regions (and sets of agencies) to be pursuing fare integration. Agencies within each region would be compelled to work together on pricing and implementation, as a condition to receiving state funding for passes.
As California and its Transit Transformation Task Force consider new sources of funding for transit statewide to drive transformation, funding fare integration should be a key priority – and Taiwan’s success shows that significant benefits can be realized quickly, with the right balance of state leadership and partnership with local agencies.