The Taoyuan Airport MRT’s regular trains arrive in Taiwan！Set to open next March

▲The regular train of the Taoyuan Airport MRT line arrives at Taipei Harbor. (Photo／Cropped fromthe Taiwan Railways News Agency fan page)

Lifestyle Center／Comprehensive report

The much-anticipated regular trains of the Taoyuan Airport MRT line arrived at Taipei Harbor on September 1. According to the plan, the regular trains of the airport MRT consist of four-car formations, with each train accommodating approximately 1,000 passengers. The cost of one car of the airport MRT line is over NT$80 million, with a four-car train set amounting to NT$320 million—all manufactured by Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The airport MRT is scheduled to open at the end of March 2016, under the slogan of “absolute safety and stable operation,” aiming to provide the public with a safe and convenient mass transit system.

▲Dynamic testing of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, file photo. (Photo／Courtesy of the High-Speed Rail Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communications website)

Taipei Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan stated that the 12-car train sets purchased by the Railway Bureau for the Taoyuan Airport MRT line—three sets in total—have been transported to Taiwan in three separate shipments from Kobe Port in Japan. The first shipment of four cars arrived in Taiwan on the 1st and will be delivered to the Qingpu Depot on the 3rd and 4th for assembly into one four-car train set, ready to join the testing phase. Once all three sets are assembled, the number of regular trains on the Taoyuan Airport MRT line will increase to 20.

The Taoyuan Airport MRT line is Taiwan’s first MRT line connecting an international airport with its neighboring towns. It runs south from Taipei Main Station through Taoyuan International Airport to Zhongli District in Taoyuan, spanning a total length of 51 kilometers. The line includes 22 stations and connects with four stations—Taipei Main Station among them—to six rail networks: Taiwan Railways, Taiwan High Speed Rail, and Taipei MRT lines including the Tamsui-Xinyi Line, Ban-Nan Line, Zhonghe-Xinlu Line, and Circular Line. Travel time from Taipei Main Station to Taoyuan International Airport is expected to be just 35 minutes, significantly reducing commuting duration.

Future train services on the Taoyuan Airport MRT line will be divided into express and regular trains. The purple express trains are designed primarily to serve air travelers, while the blue regular trains cater to commuters. In the future, the public can choose the type of train based on their needs, though fare details have yet to be announced.