If you’re at all familiar with Taipei then you’ll find the deliberate lack of accuracy jarring. This map ain’t for you.
But if you’re a tourist here for the first time, you just need to know how to get from A to B, it doesn’t make any difference to you that things aren’t really where the map says they are.
It makes more sense on a complicated system. See how straightforward Paris looks…
Seems like the circle version is just how to get from station to station, with no sense of geographical accuracy. It makes it easier to find the transfer stations and identify different lines. Though, I tend to prefer geographical accuracy on map so I know which part of town I’ll end up in.
Confusing, less intuitive, almost difficult to understand.
It’s been tried before in other countries long ago who realized it isn’t good. I think London and maybe Paris both tried it 50-year more years ago.
But Taiwan flips the maps around to different directions inside the MRT and that is also confusing, less intuitive, and extremely difficult to understand. One wall will have north at the top and then the other wall will have North at the bottom. So when you walk across to a different map, it’s been flipped to a different direction depending on which way they think you’re facing.
That’s what I really hate. For people like me who think spatially, that’s a total fail. It seems like most locals think linearly when it comes to directions though, as a series of commands like you get from a GPS…turn left, then turn right at next light, etc. So maybe the orientation of the maps doesn’t make any difference for them?
With the airport line to start a trial run tomorrow before its official launch on March 2, Tsai said public transportation will reach a new milestone with the opening of the line, which brings Taoyuan into the MRT era.
The trial run is to be conducted in two phases. From tomorrow to Feb. 15, the line will be open to groups from government agencies and other organizations with advanced reservations.
From Feb. 16 through March 1, it will be opento the public from 8am to 4pm daily.
Feb 16 - Mar 1 is open to all, but passes are being dripped out in limited quantities at specific times so it’s not too practical for getting to the airport during those 2 weeks.
A friend of mine who works for the company in charge of the airport line told me that the cars purchased to run on it are too long, and this means that if the tracks aren’t inspected at frequent intervals, the resulting extra wear will eventually result in a derailing at speed, which could be catastrophic on those high-level tracks.
Hopefully the company that manages it won’t adopt the Taiwanese management style. That would be a very big PR disaster for Taiwan to have a train between the airport and Taipei go off the tracks. I wouldn’t think that they would be that stupid.