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Can I take a phone call on the MRT?

Short answer

Yes. The operator asks only that you lower your voice. The rule that carries a fine here is eating and drinking — national law, NT$1,500 to 7,500 — and the phone is not on that list.

The yellow line at Taipei Metro fare gates marking where eating and drinking stop

What the operator actually asks

Taipei Metro’s on-train guidance carries one line about phones: when talking on your cell phone, lower your voice so that you do not interfere with the comfort of other passengers. Taking the call is not what is being addressed.

The rest of that page is about how the crowd moves — mind the gap, move into the centre of the carriage, hold a handrail when the train is braking, do not lean on the doors, let arriving passengers off first. The phone item sits among those as a courtesy, not as a prohibition.

Why visitors assume otherwise

The MRT’s reputation for strictness is earned, but it comes from a different rule. Eating, drinking and chewing gum inside the paid area are banned by Article 50 of the Mass Rapid Transit Act — national law rather than a house rule — and the fine runs from NT$1,500 to NT$7,500.

That restricted area begins at the fare gates, not at the train door, and it is enforced. Visitors who meet this rule first tend to assume everything else on the MRT carries the same weight. The phone does not appear in that law at all.

How this reads in the carriage

Carriages here are quiet by habit rather than by rule, so a short call at an ordinary indoor volume passes without anyone reacting. The bar is the one the operator wrote down: do not make yourself audible to people who did not choose to listen.

If the call is going to be a real conversation, the instinct that works anywhere works here too — get off at the next station. Beside the dark blue priority seats the expectation is stronger, which is worth knowing before you settle in next to them.

Good to know

  • Calls are allowed — the operator asks for a lowered voice, not silence
  • The fine-backed rule on the MRT is eating and drinking (NT$1,500–7,500), and the phone is not in it

Sources: Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation — On the train · Laws & Regulations Database of the ROC — Mass Rapid Transit Act · Updated

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