The volume of traffic on freeways during the Lunar New Year holiday is likely to peak midway through the nine-day period, the Ministry of Transport said yesterday.
Traffic is expected to be relatively light from Saturday next week to Feb. 9 and is expected to spike on Feb. 10, then fall again for the remaining four days of the holiday, Deputy Minister of Transport Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁) said after the Cabinet’s weekly meeting.
Tseng said the authorities would strive to ensure that the travel time between Taipei and Kaohsiung is no more than six hours during peak periods.
However, he encouraged people to use the two main railway systems, the Taiwan Railways Administration and the Taiwan High Speed Rail, saying that seats are still available on both services.
Extra buses would also be put into service this year to help decrease the number of private vehicles on the road, Tseng said.
People planning to travel on the Chiang Wei-shu Memorial Freeway (Freeway No. 5), which connects the Taipei metropolitan area with Yilan County, should be prepared for periods of very heavy traffic, he said, adding that several control measures will be implemented to help ease traffic congestion.
The control measures include banning private vehicles with less than three passengers from 7am to noon from Feb. 8 to Feb. 10, and on the southbound lanes from the Nangang onramp in Taipei and the Shiding and Pinglin onramps in New Taipei City, the ministry said.
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