One of three partnerships vying for a government contract for electronic toll-collection (ETC) systems has signed a technology-transfer deal just days before the government awards the contract.
Raytheon's Highway Transportation Management Systems yesterday inked an agreement with Taiwan Yu-Tung Information Technology Co to transfer technology on the use of dedicated short-range communication -- a wireless protocol to transfer data between vehicles and roadside electronic toll-collection systems; laser detection and classification of vehicles; and image capture of license plates.
The US' Raytheon is a partner in one of three partnerships vying to capture what has been referred to in the Chinese-language media as the largest ETC investment project in the world.
On Dec. 24 last year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications selected three finalists for the project from a list of seven partnerships: Acer and Norway's Qfree; FarEastone and Austria's Efkon; and Taiwan Yu-Tung and Raytheon.
The controversial bid will be concluded tomorrow when the government awards the project to one of the three partnerships.
According to the ministry's Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau, a contract is scheduled to be signed by April 27. In addition, by February 2006, the first ETC booths should be completed on National Freeways No. 1 and 3.
The bidding process for the system has been surrounded by controversy, with the results of the first ETC bid in April 2001 declared null due to allegations of unfair competition.
Furthermore, lawmakers from the pan-blue camp have called attention to the fact that Raytheon is an arms manufacturer supported by Neil Bush, brother of US President George W. Bush, and have accused the Democratic Progressive Party administration of cutting an under-the-table deal with the manufacturer.
Michael Prout, Raytheon Highway Transportation Management Systems president, yesterday called the allegations "nonsense."
Of the three contenders, only Efkon's proposal would implement infrared technology.
Both Raytheon and Qfree, on the other hand, have designed ETC systems that are based on microwave technology.
Prout said that Raytheon had deployed ETC systems in Canada and Israel and estimated that construction of Taiwan's ETC system would take under a year.
Taiwan Yu-Tung president K. P. Chang (
"Images of the license plates of passing cars would allow us to locate the driver even without the on-board-units. The driver can set up an account that would allow money transfers to be made between bank accounts. Another option would be for the driver's account to be linked to a cellular-phone account so that tolls can be included on the phone bill," Chang said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift