Under the terms of the contract, the travel time between Taipei and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport should fall within 35 minutes, and the interval between each train should be three minutes, but current tests show the travel time is about 37 minutes, while the intervals are around three minutes and 15 seconds.
It’s only 2 minutes difference, (and 15 seconds in second case). Why bother?[/quote]
Politics, of course. I just hope they get some people in to clean up the stations and spray some WD40 on everything that needs it before they let the public use it.
I’ve found that the HSR + shuttle takes as much time as the bus to the airport from Taipei main station. Usually the bus will take the elevated tollway during peak hours. Just need to arrive at the bus station 1.5 hours before the time you want to get to the airport to allow for a possible large queue.
Still cannot believe that they didn’t build the HSR directly to the airport.
[quote=“nonredneck”]I’ve found that the HSR + shuttle takes as much time as the bus to the airport from Taipei main station. Usually the bus will take the elevated tollway during peak hours. Just need to arrive at the bus station 1.5 hours before the time you want to get to the airport to allow for a possible large queue.
Still cannot believe that they didn’t build the HSR directly to the airport.[/quote]
Or at least some light rail transit connection of sorts from HSR station to the airport.
the HSR is like that in most places in taiwan though. the station is outside the actual town and you need to commute to finish the trip. it should be renamed hi speed rail + bus
Or at least some light rail transit connection of sorts from HSR station to the airport.[/quote]
That wouldn’t necessarily be faster, really. I once took the Ubus shuttle from the airport to Taoyuan HSR Station, and still had to wait 50 minutes for a train. Took me a total of an hour and a half to get from Taipei to the airport.
The airport MRT line will be quicker and more reliable.
At the same time, you kind of have to think, if you want HSR to go straight into the city center, you’d need to find space for the station and extra road blockages for construction, right? Ma fan.
Or at least some light rail transit connection of sorts from HSR station to the airport.[/quote]
That wouldn’t necessarily be faster, really. I once took the Ubus shuttle from the airport to Taoyuan HSR Station, and still had to wait 50 minutes for a train. Took me a total of an hour and a half to get from Taipei to the airport.
The airport MRT line will be quicker and more reliable.[/quote]
At least that bit could have been done, built and set into service many, many years ago. If they had planned it along the HSR or a couple of years after HSR started, it could have been ready faster thanbuilding a whole line.
I mean, HSR started operations in 2007. A light rail takes two years tops. HSR is now in the red but with the airport link it would have a lot of passenger traffic, much more than now. But greed and real estate rampant corruption took over…
I think they did that on purpose. The HSR only stops for less than a minute at each station, and you know how narrow the aisle is and how small the luggage compartment is. There’s simply not enough time or room to accommodate air travelers. Speed is the purpose for constructing the HSR, not airport commute.
It always surprised me that the TSR never thought to run a spur for a shuttle train from Taoyuan to the airport. Seems like the simplest solution of them all.
I think even if HSR did go right to the airport, there would still need to be a dedicated Taipei-Airport line of some sort.
For various reasons, HSR doesn’t have the capacity needed for Taoyuan Airport’s planned growth.
-Headway between trains is too great (way more than 3 minutes, because you can’t run 300kph trains close together).
-Trains are not set up ideally (narrow plug doors in vestibules, lots of reclining seats instead of luggage racks, only 3 non-reserved cars).
-Taipei station doesn’t have the capacity to turn around lots of trains. Nangang will be slightly better.
None of Japan’s main airports connect directly to Shinkansen either.
Yes, just like the station in Tainan (Zuoying?) where the TRA is connected to the the HSR station. However, I do remember intervals between trains are not often since it was one train running on the track.
Shanghai’s maglev is definitely high speed - extremely so. Taipei could have gone for that, if the huge cost could be justified and there weren’t property developers to back-rub.
My point is that slapping an airport stop on a high speed intercity line is at best a compromise. Japan seems to agree - I don’t think they’re planning to build their crazy superconducting maglev line out to Narita or Kansai, though that thing will be decades in the making so it could change.
shanghai’s maglev isn’t ideal either. its fast but the station is halfway out in pudong. if the taipei airport metro is really going to be 35 minutes thats not bad at all…