Branch line terminal with meager traffic

New mall turns the tide

The Xiaobitan Branch Line began operations in 2004, connecting the Xiaobitan Metro Station to Qizhang Station on the Green Line. Run with only three carriages, instead of the usual number of six, the branch line service to the area has not recorded much passenger traffic.

The branch line was actually built on existing infrastructure taking metro trains to the Xindian depot when the first phase of the Green Line between Guting and Xindian stations began operations in November 1999.

Before 2018, the average number of passengers entering and exiting the station per day had been below 5,000, and had always been in the bottom three stations in terms of passenger traffic.

There were not many options for shopping in Xindian, apart from hypermarket chain Carrefour's Xindian store, which is close to Qizhang Station. The opening of IKEA's Xindian outlet in May 2019, however, led to a 70 percent surge in passenger traffic to a daily average of 8,000 between April and June that year. Xiaobitan saw a further 19 percent monthly rise in passenger numbers in March, when the Qsquare mall began operations in March 2020 amid the COVID-19 conoravirus pandemic.

Xinbeitou Station, a terminal of another branch line, meanwhile, has seen better performance, thanks to visitors to the area known for its hot springs.

The daily average number of passengers entering and exiting Xinbeitou Station hovered around 19,000 in 2018, which was the 94th-highest among the Taipei Metro's 108 stations at that time. Services to Xinbeitou, which was designed to be a terminal station for the Red Line, were forced to run with only three carriages as a branch line, because of local residents' complaints of noise.