The attack on an escalator at a Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station late yesterday left three women and a man with knife wounds.
Witnesses told of passengers screaming and running away, shouting: "Someone has a knife!" local media reported.
Television footage showed the attacker being bundled to the ground inside the MRT station by three security guards.
The attack came after former college student Cheng Chieh, 22, was sentenced to death for a stabbing spree on a subway carriage in May last year which killed four and left more than 20 others wounded in an attack that shocked the island.
More From This Section
Kuo is being questioned on charges of attempted murder and theft -- the knife was stolen from a shop.
"He lives with his aunt who he had a fight with last week, and he had been sleeping in a park since. He's long-term unemployed and stabbed using a stolen kitchen knife," Chang Chin-an, deputy branch chief of Tatung district police, told AFP.
The victims, aged 31 to 50, were hospitalised but have since been released, authorities said.
Interior minister Chen Wei-zen pledged to beef up patrols at MRT stations and urged the public not to panic.
A court statement when he was sentenced in March this year said Cheng's crimes "angered gods and men" and that giving him the death penalty would safeguard society.
Relatives of the victims welcomed the sentence.