TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taipei counts down to its conclusion, visitors have increased and surpassed one million in a single day on Saturday (Feb. 11).

Taipei’s Department of Information and Tourism wrote in a press release that after analyzing information drawn from a big data system with the support of telecom signal analysis, the number of festival visitors crossed the one million threshold at 10 p.m. Meanwhile, over 300,000 passengers traveled through MRT stations near the event’s location, including Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei City Hall, Zhongxiao Fuxing, Zhongxiao Dunhua, and Taipei 101/World Trade Center stations.

Some of the most crowded areas were Sun Yet-sen Memorial Hall, where the festival’s main light, “Brilliant Light of the Jade Hare,” is located; the Lantern Competition Zone on City Hall Road, where traditional lanterns are displayed; and the Fount of Light Display Zone in the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, where an immersive naked-eye 3D show on the installation, “Taipei Together, ” takes place every half an hour.

According to the department, despite the large crowd, traffic flowed smoothly and without accidents. This was thanks to flexible traffic control policies such as closing road sections for pedestrians’ use, as well as nearly 500 police officers and volunteer traffic wardens.

Additionally, Taipei Metro arranged for every other MRT train to pass by the Sun Yet-sen Memorial Hall station without stopping to increase efficiency. The station’s exits were also under traffic control, while Ministry of Transportation and Communications staff members and volunteers, working with the innovative Skeleton-Print Technology that analyzes people’s postures and actions, monitored the crowd’s movements.

Environmental protection-wise, nearly 700 volunteers and nearly 100 street cleaners from the Department of Environmental Protection worked through the night to ensure public spaces’ cleanliness.

The crowd on City Hall Road, where traditional lanterns are displayed. (Taipei City Department of Information and Tourism photo)