The Suggested Reformation of Taiwan Railway Operation:
In the case of The North Link Line Derail of “Taroko”
Procrastination Problems
In the past ten years, the procrastination problem of TRA is discussed in full swing in public. There are three main reasons that affect the whole train schedule system a lot, station mastering with passengers’ flows, trains’ regulation with platform management and scheduling practices with train arrangement. As a station management, making clear route instructions is benefit for passengers to follow the ideal path, shortest path, to get to their destination.
Passengers' Flows
Source: Mannheim (2018)
Symbol s stands for station, “-1” means “past”, “+1” means “future”. The diagram shows how specialists to make statistics analysis in mathematic ways. Ps-1,s reveals that in a station passengers would gather from past station and present station. Station “s” is a center of transfer point that provides services for passengers from feeder trains to transfer to connecting line. the crowd diversion is essential to keep the people in stations moving smoothly.
As a station management, making clear route instructions is benefit for passengers to follow the ideal path, shortest path, to get to their destination. In Taiwan, center station like Taipei does have smooth design on passengers’ evacuation. The boarding point and alight point are apart from each other. However, the common design in Taiwan station is the shopping store placed near to the Ticket Check point, this really matters passengers to rest and move in the station hall. In fact, the more people stuck at the Ticket Check point, the more passengers will be late for preparing to get on the train. What’s more, stopping trains are often compelled to spend too much little time waiting passengers to board on train at every station, which causes a great delay on time; for example, the standard dwelling time of train is between one to one-half minutes, if thirty seconds are added in every dwelling time of station from Hualien to Taipei, which may cause at least 4 minutes delay.
Problems of Platforms
Because of finite land and crowded space, doubled Island type of platform is widely used in Taiwan. Islands are set between two paths in one direction, every Island is separated by two paths. First grade train like “Puyuma” and “Taroko”, are arranged to dock at interior side of Island in priority. Shuttle train are asked to dock at outer side of Island when it comes with express train at the same time.
Source: Lu & Marsh (2010)
There are five common types of platforms in railway. Double Island Platform is ideal design for center station and transfer station, for being efficiently to divide different use in different types of trains. It is used in top and first grade station like Taipei station and Banqiao station. Passing Tracks Platform is used for second and third grade station, some platforms are not only for passengers’ transportation but also for deliveries of packages and materials. Side Platforms are used for base or house station with numbers of intersection railways to guide trains.
Island Type
Island Type
Spanish Solution(Mix type of Island and Passing Track)
Japan
Passing Track
In UK
However, passengers can only board on trains from one side, which gives rise to the time increasing of boarding time. In Japan, stations in cities not only in type of “doubled island” but also in type of “Spanish solution” which is composed of islands with passing tracks between each two of islands. Trains come from north will open the right-side doors with left-side doors closed; trains that head up will open left-side doors with right-side doors closed. therefore, it is more flexible for scattering travelers. To improve the trains congestion, TRA must think twice to design platforms or change the methods into creating multitasking platforms. In this way, train stations will be bouncy to undertake the temporary great burden of trains flows. At present, TRA is dedicated to increasing the budget for preparing the construction practices in the next decade.