Taiwan High Speed Rail Tightens Boarding Rules: Passengers Exceeding 1-Hour Early Travel Must Re-book Seats

New policy aims to optimize seat availability and alleviate congestion on popular routes.

Starting tomorrow, passengers on Taiwan's High Speed Rail (THSR) who wish to travel on an earlier train by more than one hour will be required to re-book their tickets. Failure to do so will result in being denied passage through the automatic gates.

This new regulation addresses a persistent issue where a significant number of passengers, estimated at over 720,000 annually, book reserved seats but opt to travel on earlier trains using unreserved seating without formally changing their tickets. This practice leads to valuable reserved seats remaining empty and unavailable for purchase by other passengers. Furthermore, it indirectly reduces the capacity for unreserved seating on popular services.

According to THSR statistics, approximately 2,000 reserved seats are wasted daily due to passengers not showing up for their booked trains and instead using unreserved seating on earlier services. This translates to over 60,000 unused seats per month and more than 720,000 annually. This not only infringes upon the rights of passengers who genuinely need reserved seating but also consumes capacity that could have been utilized by those opting for unreserved travel.

The updated policy aims to ensure that reserved seats are utilized efficiently and to improve the overall passenger experience by managing capacity more effectively. However, passengers who wish to switch to an earlier train within one hour of their original departure time, and who opt for unreserved seating, will still have some flexibility and are not subject to this strict re-booking requirement at this time.