One day after irate opposition lawmakers questioned the operability of the high-speed rail system, the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) yesterday demanded that the government and the builder fully address the system's problems ahead of an inauguration ceremony scheduled early next month.
Foundation chairman Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) said that the Bureau of High Speed Rail risked endangering public safety by failing to present a report on improvements made as required by the independent inspection committee appointed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
The foundation said that it would call on the public to boycott the railway system if the government and Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) fail to correct the problems, including train derailments and sinkages in some sections along the rail line.
An inspection committee mem-ber, who also attended the press conference yesterday, voiced his concern over construction safety.
"I'm very worried," said Yang Yeong-bin (楊永斌), professor of civil engineering at National Taiwan University and convener of the inspection committee's civil engineering group.
Showing one of the four big books of the risk assessment report -- the Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) -- released by Lloyd's Register Group on Nov. 6, Yang said that the British certification authority clearly outlined 28 major defects that await improvement and suggested that trial run and integration tests be carried out.
However, two weeks later Lloyd's Register issued another report which did not mention these problems, he said, adding that no explanation or solution was offered as to how the problems were addressed.
Furthermore, a two-month trial run should have started on Nov. 6 to observe how THSRC deals with the problems identified in the IV&V report, he said.
Japan's bullet train system, Shinkansen, underwent six months of trial operations before the inauguration, Yang said. Even the aircraft manufacturer Airbus SAS is test flying its superjumbo A380 now in many major airports before handing over the new jets to a slew of carriers, he added.
"I don't think conclusions should be made before the high-speed railway system goes through comprehensive tests," he said.
The ministry has arranged for the inspection committee to convene their final meeting tomorrow, even after some members voiced their dissent following the railway system's second derailment last Friday morning during routine inspections.
THSRC has said that it expects to obtain an operating permit for the build-operate-transfer (BOT) project on Friday before holding an inauguration ceremony on Dec. 7.
As the inauguration ceremony is scheduled two days before the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections, "this is indeed tantamount to treating the public like guinea pigs with political considerations overriding professional assessments," the Consumers' Foundation chairman said.
Cheng also questioned the report of Lloyd's Register, which is scheduled to renew its contract with THSRC in February, saying the UK firm might have been under pressure to rewrite its report in favor of THSRC.
Foundation secretary-general Yu Kai-hsiung (
On Saturday, People First Party lawmakers threatened to curtail the budget of the Bureau of High Speed Rail unless a new round of inspections was conducted.
The inspection committee is composed of 16 academics and spe-cialists in civil engineering, architecture, electric machinery, accident prevention and transportation.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to