Starting in July, Taipei and New Taipei buses implemented mandatory tap-in/tap-out, a new policy that typically faces backlash—complaints like "inconvenient" or "too troublesome"—but this time residents showed high acceptance. Bus drivers broadcast reminders along routes, reminding passengers to tap both when boarding and alighting. However, haven't Taichung and Tainan already implemented tap-in/tap-out? Why was Taipei and New Taipei so slow? The real reason lies in strategic thinking and data collection related to lifestyle.
Look at the ridership numbers for Taipei and New Taipei buses: Taipei accumulates 470 million rides annually with 18 million bus operations; New Taipei accumulates 300 million rides annually with 13 million bus operations—both figures are substantial. Previously, however, these numbers couldn't be used for lifestyle research. But what data can now be collected through tap-in/tap-out implementation, and why is data collection now possible?
Two Key Policies Driving Card-Tap Data Collection
To answer this question, we must first review two critical policy changes from the past.
First: 2015 | EasyCard Real-Name Registration Policy
Named-account registration was introduced because when EasyCards were lost or damaged, the remaining balance couldn't be refunded. After implementing registration, the card became linked to your identity, allowing for loss reporting and card replacement, with remaining balances transferable to new cards.
Second: 2017 | FSC Approves EasyCard Mobile Payment
People without credit cards could now make small online payments through EasyCard, with 19 banks offering co-branded EasyCards with automatic reloading, completing the final mile of lifestyle and consumption models for the general public.
These increasingly convenient aspects of daily life actually had policy support behind them, combined with infrastructure development, enabling the July 2019 launch of tap-in/tap-out for Taipei and New Taipei buses. If tap-in/tap-out had been introduced in 2015, complete data collection wouldn't have been possible.
Tap-In/Tap-Out Not New to Taipei-New Taipei—Smart City Philosophy is the Difference
So what's the difference between this and Taichung and Tainan's tap-in/tap-out systems?
Examining transit regulations, those two cities' buses use "distance-based fares"—the farther you travel, the more you pay. Therefore, tap-in/tap-out is necessary to calculate distance and allow passengers to pay by card. It's not entirely without data backing, but at best, only route information, ridership volume, and passenger point-to-point habit patterns can be collected—difficult to describe comprehensively.
Taipei and New Taipei's tap-in/tap-out represents smart city thinking. Because EasyCard uses real-name registration, it records user names, ID numbers, ages, and gender demographics, even verifying ID numbers. This means passenger personal information can be one-to-one matched with boarding/alighting data, becoming part of the database. Using co-branded EasyCards enables deeper research into consumer behavior and lifestyle patterns. For example: Do male or female commuters buy breakfast or coffee before boarding or after alighting? Is there positive correlation between convenience store proximity to bus stops and purchase intent?
Consider the next step: cross-classifying demographics, consumption habits, and riding times to find overlaps, then using SMS (chatbots) to send policy-related information or organize in-person gatherings. Could this potentially create a government-driven "mass community"?
Beyond this, tap-in/tap-out data reveals overlapping Taipei-New Taipei lifestyle patterns, bus and station usage, and ridership, enabling adjustments to bus frequency and arrival/departure times for smoother road usage. EasyCard Company currently estimates three months for data collection, allowing diagnostic review of each Taipei-New Taipei route and identifying stations with no passengers or unnecessary route curves.
Implementation succeeds because smart city thinking guides strategy adjustments, backed by driver announcements and bus display messaging reinforcement. As July 1st arrived, passengers felt no particular burden or resistance—unlike previous policy adjustments—moving smart cities forward another step.
