The Taipei MRT''s official mobile app can now tell you how crowded your train will be. Thanks to an update on the "Go! Taipei Metro" mobile app, you can now see how crowded the next train is, in real time. Crowd data is displayed for every individual car on the train, so that you can avoid the most packed carriages. This feature rolled out on Thursday for the busy Blue Line to help commuters practice social distancing.

Masses of people bustle about at the Taipei MRT. These days, the sight of a crowded carriage can induce anxiety. But if you''re in a hurry, there''s no choice but to get in. To help riders avoid packed cars and maintain social distancing, the Taipei metro has added a new feature to its mobile app.

Taipei Metro employee
It shows how crowded the carriages on the incoming train are. Here you can see that Carriage 1 will be more comfortable than the others.

Open the app on your phone to see the real-time rider density of the next train. Green indicates a "comfortable" number of riders in the carriage, where there empty seats. Yellow indicates an "average" rider density, meaning there''s space to move around. Relatively crowded cars are flagged in orange, and cars that are completely packed are red.

Member of the public
It''s convenient. This way we can immediately know how to disperse ourselves.

Member of the public
It''s pretty neat that you can see whether a carriage has lots of people.

Riders praised the new feature. It''s the first of its kind in Taiwan, and it was developed in-house by the Taipei metro administration.

Chen chung-chu
Taipei Rapid Transit Corp.
The way it works is we installed pressure sensors on the underside of the carriages. The pressure sensors gather information from each car and the system calculates how crowded each carriage is.

Huang Ching-hsin
Taipei Rapid Transit Corp.
This function will be trialed on the Bannan Line for half a year. During this half year, we''ll collect feedback from our passengers. Later we will introduce this service on the Wenhu Line too.

Just like in an elevator, ridership volume is determined using the weight of the people inside. The system can calculate rider density with up to 90% accuracy. This service will first roll out on the high-volume Blue Line, to help riders maintain social distancing during their commute.

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