Taichung City's TTJ Buses Extending to Taichung County

Words and photos by Taichung City Government
Translated by Naomi Lai

The Taichung TTJ Bus system has received high public praise since its debut on May 18, 2009 and its seven bus routes have carried over 2.8 million passengers up to the end of 2009. After careful evaluation, the Taichung City Government has therefore decided to set up six more routes: the YingCai-Taiping Route (No. 51), WenXin Route (53), LiMing Route (54), Beitun-Dali Route (55), WuQuan Route (56), and ChongDe Route (58).

Direct Bus to Taiping City, Dali City and Tanzi Township
Taichung Department of Transportation Director Wen Tai-hsin said that the addition of the TTJ Bus ChongDe Route (No. 58) was made in hopes of increasing bus riders from the ChongDe Road area. Here, bus frequency will be changed to 10 minutes during rush hours and 15 minutes during regular hours, and the distance between bus stops will be decreased to 150-200 meters. Also, the YingCai-Taiping Route (51) will connect Taichung City to Taiping City; the WenXin Route (53) and the Beitun-Dali Route (55) will connect to Dali City; and the ChongDe Route (58) will reach Tanzi Township in order to accommodate the upcoming consolidation of Taichung city and county.

Director Wen said that hopefully this infrastructure would attract more bus passengers and program the public to use the mass rapid transit system in the future. According to the Department of Transportation, the six additional TTJ Bus routes will be run daily from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2010, between 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. During weekday rush hours (6:30-8:30 a.m., 4:30-6:30 p.m.) there will be a bus every 10 minutes, and during weekday regular hours or weekends there will be a bus every 15 minutes. All of the above-mentioned bus routes are free. For more information, please visit the Taichung City Department of Transportation website at http://traffic.tccg.gov.tw.

Bus Route Changes
The older TTJ Bus ZhongMing-JinHua Route (52) was created in the hope of boosting residents' acceptance of public transportation. However, the rate of usage has not increased since it first started running. Therefore, the Chang Hua Bus Co. will be take over this route (still No. 52) starting Jan. 16, 2010, with a bus every 20 minutes during rush hours and every 30-60 minutes during regular hours. This route will no longer be free and will charge according to city public transportation regulations, but holders of the TWSC card can make one free connection on any city bus for the basic mileage of 8 kilometers (a NT$20 ride) within two hours after swiping their card. The bus stops for this route will be increased to 42 stops from the original 21, greatly increasing convenience for the public and further adjustments will be made according to the amount of usage.

In addition, old TTJ Bus Taichung Port Route 57 will be changed to city bus routes No. 83 (Tunghai Villa Community-Shin Min High School) and No. 88 (Shin Min High School-YuanDong Street), with a bus every five minutes during rush hours and every 15 minutes during regular hours. These buses will charge according to city public transportation regulations.

TTJ Bus