Taichung City spends more than NT$2 billion a year subsidising its bus services, yet service quality has deteriorated and passengers continue to drift away — bad news for both commuters and taxpayers.

• Taichung's buses suffer from serious problems with skipped and delayed services; over two years passenger numbers have fallen by 3.6 million trips, with ridership dropping below 81 million.
• The city government's subsidy payments have declined year by year, yet bus operators' losses have grown larger, rising 18% over three years.
• Several Democratic Progressive Party city councillors called on the Transportation Bureau in council to fundamentally resolve the problems of chaotic dispatching and insufficient driver manpower.
• The Transportation Bureau responded that it will use an automated auditing system to monitor irregularities in bus departures, and will factor the results into its annual evaluations, directly affecting how much subsidy operators receive.

Outlook: If drivers cannot be found and dispatching does not improve, no amount of subsidy is likely to stem the continued loss of passengers.