Getting Around

The train and subway system is a great way to get around Taiwan. I am temporarily living in a small town near Zhunan, which is about 100kms south of Taipei. I commute by train to work most days. It is a time consuming affair – about 3 hours each way – door to door.

I bought a little 125cc motor scooter which is a very handy thing for getting around across small distances. It is about 8 kilometres from my home to Zhunan train station, and the scooter is great for this. The reason for getting a scooter instead of a car for this task is all about parking. Parking spaces for cars are near impossible to find.

Motor scooters are everywhere in Taiwan. They are cheap to buy and cheap to run. I bought a second hand scooter with about 15,000 kms on the clock for NT$25,000. You can buy a new scooter for between NT$60,000 to 80,000. Its cost me about NT$105 to fill the tank and that lasts me for at least a week.

Please note that I am using the local currency everywhere because exchange rates can vary wildly over time, and there are too many to worry about. At the time of writing however AU$1 = NT$29, or US$1 = NT$ 31.8.

When I was looking around to buy a scooter I had heard that scooters get stolen and sold to China. So I figured a second hand bike is less likely to stand out and be stolen versus some of the nice new shiny ones that are around. Given the amount of scooters on the road I think you would have to be unlucky to have your bike taken out of the millions on the road.

(A little bit of the gloss with the motor scooter has gone because I have witnessed about 3 incidents in 3 weeks where I have seen scooter riders on the road after coming off second best against a car.)

If you do get a scooter be aware that you need to keep your wits about you when riding in Taiwan. The road laws are more like guidelines than rules. People run red lights like there is no tomorrow (and for some of them that will be true). In Taiwan they drive on the right hand side of the road (same as the USA). For a guy like me having driven on the left hand side of the road in Australia for the past 25 years it takes a little time to adjust. But what really freaks me out is when I am driving on the right hand side of the road, like I should be, and someone in a car or on a scooter is coming directly at me in the same lane. I have to consciously think and make sure that I have not slipped into the wrong lane.

Anyway my recommendation is that a scooter is a great way to get around, but I would not want to be doing really long distances on the scooter.


Back to the trains. Taiwan has a variety of trains for getting around. There is a network called the High Speed Rail (HSR) which is similar to Japan’s bullet trains and allows you to move great distances very quickly. I have not caught one of these trains yet, but I believe that they travel at around 300 kms per hour.

Next level down is the TRA network. Within the TRA network they have express trains and ordinary trains. The best of the express trains are known as “Tze Chiang”. These provide comfortable seating and allow me to work on my computer whilst travelling. My commute from Zhunan to Taipei takes around 90 minutes on the Tze Chiang and costs NT$223. The next level down in train called a “Chu Kuang”; it does the same trip in 2 hours and costs NT$172.

Once you are in Taipei you can utilise the subway which is known as the MRT. The MRT network in Taipei is extensive and growing. The MRT or Metro is very well patronised and is responsible for taking around 1 million cars off the road in Taipei and helping to clean up air quality in Taipei.

During peak hour there are some subway stations where it is controlled chaos. There are just so many people moving through these stations all at once. It is a daily occurrence in a couple of the key stations at peak hour to have queues 200 metres long to get onto the escalator, and security will rope off stairways for a few minutes at a time to stop too many people crowding onto platforms at the same time.

Given the large numbers of users the system runs very well. Commuters line up at designated entry points for the carriages and usually wait for all passengers to get off an arriving train, before surging on. One thing I don’t understand is why they insist in jamming so many people in to a carriage at peak hour when another train is only 30 or 60 seconds away.

Ticket prices on the subway are pretty good. Most trips will cost you between 20 to 40 NT$. They also have a great smart card that you can get and pre pay funds into it. In addition to being very convenient they also provide a substantial discount. A $35 trip becomes a $23 trip.

The other way to get around is via taxi. Nearly every taxi that I have used has been very clean and well maintained, and an oasis of coolness to temporarily escape the heat and humidity of Taiwan’s summer.

Very few taxi drivers know how to speak English so you will need to know how to say your desired destination in Chinese or have someone write it for you in Chinese.

By western standards taxis in Taiwan are very cheap. The flag fall rate for taxi is NT$70 for the first 1.5 kilometres and NT$5 will be charged for every additional 300 meters. A 20% surcharge is added from 23:00 to 6:00 next morning.

Taiwan also has a large network of buses, but I generally prefer trains because I know exactly where they are going.

More information can be found on these train services via the links below:

High Speed Rail (HSR)
Taiwan Rail Administration (TRA)
Metro/Subway (MRT)