Institute of Transportation, MOTC

       The Southern Taiwan Region comprises six counties and cities, which are Yunlin County, Chiayi County, Chiayi City, Tainan City, Kaohsiung City, and Pingtung County. The focus of this year’s work is to establish a Southern Taiwan Region Transport Demand Model, to forecast the annual supply and demand of transportation system in the future, and develop strategies for the overall transportation development in the Southern Taiwan Region. The research results are summarized as follows: 1. The Southern Taiwan Region is affected by the trend of the declining birthrate and increasing aging population in the coming years, the proportion of the population over 65 years old will increase from 16.5% in the total population in 2019 to 37.2% in 2051, an increase of about 860,000 people. The total number of trips was 13.78 million in 2019, to 9.993 million in 2021, a decrease of nearly 4 million, or about 27.4%, and the trip rate will drop from 2.16 trips/person/day to 1.91 trips/person/day in 2051. 2. The trips of cross-living circles in Southern Taiwan Region are mainly with using cars. In the situation of without strong private vehicles management strategies, the proportion of using cars will increase from 78.2% in 2019 to 78.7% in 2051, the proportion of motorcycles will decrease from 14.9% to 13.7%. In terms of public transportation, the proportion of using Taiwan Railways will increase from 6.0% in 2019 to 6.4% in 2051; and the proportion of using High Speed Rail will increase from 0.8% to 1.0%, and the proportion of using bus will remain at 0.2%. As for the trips in the life circle, motorcycles and cars are mainly using and accounted for more than 90%. 3. The congestion situation of cross-living circles in the Southern Taiwan Region is more serious on National Highway No. 1 in the coming years, with a demand-supply ratio ranging from 0.83 to 1.60, indicating that National Highway No. 1 will still be the most important inter-city corridor in the future; as for the Provincial Highways, the sections will higher traffic volume are Provincial Highway 88 and Provincial Highway No. 1 respectively between Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County, with the demand-supply ratios of 0.64-0.70 and 0.46-0.51, respectively. 4. In all living circles in the Southern Taiwan Region, the demand-supply ratios of National Highway No. 1, Provincial Highway No. 1, and Zhongshan 4th Road of Kaohsiung City will be higher than 1 in the coming years; followed by the Yong'an Bridge, National Highway No. 1, Provincial Highway No, 1, Tainan City Highway No. 160, and Metropolitan Expressway in the living circles of Tainan City with the demand-supply ratio of higher than 1, and the congestion situation in Yunlin, Chiayi, and Pingtung are relatively less significant. 5. In the future, the Development Strategy Recommendations of Land Transportation Development for Southern Taiwan Region can be as follows: (1) Improve the bottleneck of the highway system by means of traffic engineering or management in the short term, and think over the overall improvement by road engineering or urban planning in the long term; (2) Integrate the public transportation system and strengthen the transfer and shuttle services to increase the utilization rate of the public transportation system; (3) Manage the travel behavior of elderly passengers and continue to optimize the transportation services for the elderly; (4) Reflect the cost of private transportation vehicles and strengthen the management of private transportation vehicles; (5) Increase the scope of services for public transportation, strengthen the intelligent services; (6) Enhance public transportation services in coordination with the TOD (Transit-Oriented Development) concept; (7) Cooperate with the development of industrial parks, and strengthen commuter trips and shuttle services.