ABSTRACT
It is 7:20 on a Tuesday morning.1 Mr Yan starts from his residence in Shi-lin, one of the districts of Taipei City (the capital city and financial-cultural center of Taiwan, located in the north of the country), walking towards the closest Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (TMRT) station. As the executive director of a major cultural research and consulting firm based in Taipei, he has to be at the Municipal Building of Kaohsiung City (the second largest city and hub of heavy industries of Taiwan-and a world-class port-located in the south of the country) at 10:30 a.m. to meet with representatives from the city’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs about the projects his firm has been carrying out for Kaohsiung City. It will take less than 10 minutes to walk from where he lives to the TMRT station; that means he will be able to catch an MRT before 7:30. It will take roughly 20 minutes to travel from Shi-lin TMRT Station to the Taipei Main Station in downtown Taipei, from there he can leisurely purchase a ticket for the 8:00 a.m. High Speed Railway (HSR), and arrive in the HSR’s Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung before 9:40 a.m. Since he has plenty of time before his 10:30 appointment, from Zuoying Station Mr Yan has the option to take the newly minted Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit (KMRT) System to the station nearest to the Kaohsiung Municipal Building, and walk or take a cab from there to his final destination. This will save him some money, as opposed to taking a cab all the way from Zuoying to downtown Kaohsiung which will cost a few hundred Taiwanese dollars more (about US$8-10).2 He will probably take a cab directly from Zuoying, given that the KMRT currently comprises only two lines and hence has a limited number of stops; it does not always get its passengers (close) to where they want to go.
