The Taipei Bus Station, which opened in August 19, 2009, is
Taiwan’s largest transfer station providing intercity bus services.
The design of this bus station is unlike other stations worldwide.
The Taipei Bus Station is a massive 24-story building (an 18-story
building with six underground floors) with a total floor area of
243,335 m2. The station has 30 ticket counters with bus information
services on its ground floor and 48 bus platforms on the
second, third and fourth floors. The Taipei Bus Station is the largest
transportation terminal in Taiwan, and houses a business hotel,
a shopping mall, several cinemas, offices, private residential suites,
and over 900 parking spaces. However, air quality inside this
terminal must be monitored as over 2500 buses are scheduled to
run daily. The PM emitted directly from buses can accumulate
within this confined space, adversely affecting the health of
passengers and workers.
This study investigates the PM and CO2 levels inside and outside
the Taipei Bus Station. An optical particle counter (OPC)was used to
measure the particle mass size distributions, PM10, and PM2.5 levels,
and a condensation particle counter (CPC) and a non-dispersive
infrared (NDIR) detector were utilized to measure the UFP and CO2
levels, respectively, at this bus terminal. The mass size distribution
analysis result may characterize airborne PM at the bus terminal.