Taipei City’s Neihu-Muzha MRT Line was shut down for four hours yesterday after its network system malfunctioned again.
It was the second system breakdown since the Neihu stretch of the line began operations on July 4. The line experienced the first shutdown on July 10 after a power outage in the afternoon and service did not resume until the following day.
Taipei City Secretariat Deputy Director Tan Gwa-guang (譚國光), director of the Neihu-Muzha Line emergency response team, said yesterday that the network system at Donghu Station malfunctioned at 11:53am and was unable to send signals to the operation center.
Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) suspended the line’s operation immediately and staff manually drove five of 26 trains that stopped between stations to the nearest platforms, Tan said at the Nangang Exhibition Center Station.
Of the five trains, one stopped between Dazhi and Songshan Airport stations, two between Zhongshan Junior High School and Songshan Airport stations, one between Wende and Gangqian stations and one between Xihu and Gangqian stations.
A total of 1,683 passengers were aboard the 26 trains and all were evacuated by 12:55pm. No passengers were forced to walk along the rails to get back to the stations, as happened on July 10. The air conditioning and lights inside the cars were not affected.
All affected passengers would receive a refund in the form of a free ticket from the TRTC, Tan said.
The system’s computer network returned to normal at 12:58pm and service was resumed at 4:20pm after authorities restarted the system and conducted a trial run.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) apologized for the latest disruption to services, blaming the frequent malfunctions on the Neihu stretch on an overly sensitive system.
“I am very sorry that the shutdown caused so much inconvenience for the residents ... An overly sensitive system has been the main problem and we will ask Bombardier to fix it as soon as possible,” Hau said.
The city has no plans to suspend operations of the Neihu portion of the line to conduct a thorough inspection of the system, Hau said.
“Suspending operations would be a big decision to make, and we are focusing our efforts now on stabilizing the system,” he said.
The Montreal-based Bombardier, which built the Neihu stretch, has sent a vice president and about 130 engineers to work on the system.
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