That's a pretty complicated question and you will hear many perspectives. The current thinking is to move to about half your volume but increase intensity. Me, I've always just reduced volume.

As far as when you reach peak, again another complicated question. I'm not a coach so advice specific to you I can't give. I will say that if you have a training plan, stick to it. My IM training, which is really all I taper for, means I am putting in my highest training hours 4 - 6 weeks out from my event. I usually do my highest volume for 2 - 3 weeks then start to cut back 2.5 weeks out from the event. What that cutting back looks like, depends on you.

Our resident scientists can give you a better response backed my research but hopefully this has helped a bit.

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

In my mind, taper is not different than recovery day(s)/week(s) (depending on the length of your taper).
You want your body and mind to rest and be 100% the day of the race. So they key is to give more time to your body by reducing volume. However you do not want to decrease your volume too much too rapidly.
As you are focusing on your race, you want also to increase the intensity (not for all workouts of course).

Also folks are different, but I personally to take a day off two days before the race and do a light workout the day before just to ensure I am not "too rusty"

Fred.

A good resource is "The Triathlete's Training Bible" which explains how to build your own training plan for the various triathlon distances. To me, tapering means feeling edgy and really bad in general, that when I know the taper is working.