Recently the high-speed railway inspection committee from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications concluded that the high-speed railway may not be ready to begin operating and that it therefore will not be allowed to do so before it completes a one-month period without any accident. However, Taiwan High-Speed Railway Corp (THSRC) management believes that demand is too strict. I wonder why there is such substantial disagreement between the company and the inspection committee. The problem is that the THSRC's present operational abilities are insufficient to convince committee inspectors.
If the THSRC wants the high-speed rail to become fully operational as soon as possible, then the easiest approach would be to demonstrate its operational capabilities. That would also meet public expectations. If it doesn't, a lack of public confidence would mean that the high-speed rail would not be very successful even if it begins operating. The inspectors' requirements are thus absolutely reasonable. The definition of operational accidents is, however, very important, and there is still room for discussing whether "accident" means that someone must be injured or die. Further discussion is thus required.
At present, the differences consist of the inspection committee's opinion that operational staff such as train drivers, traffic controllers and station, train and maintenance staff are not familiar with operational regulations and do not receive adequate training.
Since the THSRC currently does not have enough qualified train drivers, it is impossible for the company to demonstrate that it can operate trains at an interval no greater than four minutes.
This means that if the THSRC wants to begin train operations, it must reduce the frequency of its scheduled train runs and thus operate at reduced capacity.
In fact, it would be reasonable for the THSRC to reduce its train runs in the early stages of operation. Certain high speed rail systems in other countries also adopted a similar operational mode in the early stage of operation. Therefore, it is not a completely unfeasible idea for the THSRC to adopt an incrementally more frequent train schedule design to gain more hands-on operational experience.
In addition, the THSRC's build-operate-transfer contract clearly stipulates that the high-speed rail's initial capacity from Taipei to Tsoying, Kaohsiung, must satisfy the estimated capacity requirements stipulated by the concession company and the Bureau of Taiwan High Speed Rail in the first year, ie, the capacity between Taipei and Tsoying may not be less than 60,000 passengers every day.
However, on the issue of capacity verification, the contract also stipulates that the two parties shall arrange a date for verifying initial capacity within six months of the beginning of operations. That means that according to the contract, the THSRC only has to achieve initial capacity after six months of operation. The question is of course what the ministry will do if the company cannot meet initial capacity demands after six months. They must have some kind of countermeasures.
Communication problems between local and foreign staff are more likely to occur in the early stages of operations. Yet if train frequency is reduced in the early stage of operations, operational risk will also be reduced. The THSRC should be able to take full charge of operations when local employees have become familiar with the entire operational mode and regulations.
Nonetheless, all operational regulations should be translated to Chinese and all staff communications between should also be in Chinese, since the railway system differs from air transportation which requires English as the universal language.
However, Chinese should in future be the major language used in the communications between the control center and train staff to avoid misunderstandings. In Japan, Germany and France, high-speed railway staff all use their respective national languages to communicate.
In fact, the THSRC should already have conducted an analysis of the possible risks with the high-speed railway system.
Some risk was already eliminated during the planning, design and construction stages, and remaining risks should be controlled by abidance with operational regulations to guarantee that risk remain within reasonable limits.
Therefore, if the inspection committee were given the operational risk analysis, that would serve to bridge some differences and help discover operational problems at an earlier stage.
Since train frequency will be reduced during the early stages of operations, many risks will be avoided. That does not guarantee, however, that other operational problems will not occur.
The government should therefore have some response strategy ready in the event that such problems do occur.
From the short-term perspective, the inspection committee should remain in place to supervise the safety of the high-speed rail in its early phase.
Furthermore, the high-speed rail section between Banciao and Taipei has yet to be completed, and when the stations in Taipei's Nangang, Miaoli County, Changhua County and Yunlin County become operational, they still have to go through the inspection procedure, which means that there is still a need for this kind of inspection mechanism.
Whether or not the inspection committee should include consumer representatives is also something worth considering.
From a long-term perspective, supervisory and management mechanisms for the high-speed rail should be strengthened to achieve sustainable safety.
Cheng Yung-hsiang is an assistant professor in the department of logistics management at National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
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