"To buy or not to buy [onboard units]?"
That's a question that has been haunting highway motorists around the country since the formal launch of the Highway Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) System two weeks ago, when two of the lanes of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway were turned into ETC-exclusive lanes.
The pressure, however, shows no signs of easing, as the Taipei High Administrative Court issued a verdict on Friday disqualifying Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co (遠通電收), the manufacturer and designer of the onboard units (OBUs) used in the systems, as the best candidate in the "build, operate and transfer" (BOT) project.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
The court has further decided that the second-best candidate in the bidding process, Taiwan Yu-Tung Information Technology Co (
Minister of Transportation and Communications Kuo Yao-chi (
Douglas Hsu
In reply to questions about the scandal surrounding the project, Hsu said that Far Eastern and the four other firms involved in the project had obtained the government's approval legally.
The verdict has now put the interests of some 70,000 motorists who have purchased OBUs at risk, as the government might have to open the project to a new group of bidders, whose system might not be compatible with that of Far Eastern.
MOTC made a late-night announcement on Friday that the public can now determine themselves if they want to install OBUs. The consumer's interest will remain the ministry's top priority, it said.
The price of the OBU, valued at NT$1,343, remains the most controversial issue both before and after the implementation of the policy.
Before the ETC system's implementation, some motorists tried to launch a massive e-mail campaign urging people to boycott the use of OBUs. They cited MOTC's regulation that one ETC lane would be canceled if the OBU usage rate failed to reach 4 percent within three months. Moreover, Far Eastern will be fined NT$500,000 daily if it fails to raise the usage rate to 16.3 percent within a year, the e-mail indicated.
"So please tell everyone you know not to install an OBU now," said a motorist who identified herself as "Demi" in the message. "When the time comes, Far Eastern will get down on their knees and beg you to buy it."
However, some now say that the pricing should not be an issue, referring to the proposal that Far Eastern had submitted to the MOTC earlier, in which it clearly stated that motorists would not have to pay anything during the promotional period. And in the long run, with the company considering changing the IC card into a co-branded card, the installation cost may not exceed NT$499.
But some people warned that focusing the discussion on the pricing is missing the mark.
Jason Chang (張學孔), professor of transport systems at National Taiwan University and former chief of the MOTC's information technology division, said that a consumer boycott of the OBU has not been altogether reasonable, as it has failed to consider both the price and the quality of the service it delivers.
Chang said that the reason Taiwan has adopted a more expensive, two-piece OBU unit system instead of a cheaper, one-piece toll-tag system, is to prepare motorists for the time when the islandwide Vehicle Positioning System (VPS) is completed. The system allows the government to accurately trace the routes of vehicles on the freeway and charge motorists more fairly based on the mileage recorded.
Chang said, however, that the ETC system did not work well because the toll booths did not strictly follow the original design.
"The idea should be a multi-lane free flow," Chang said, "And to do that, you need to tear down the two toll booths, which will give you three lanes."
Contrary to the single-lane design currently in use, where drivers have to slow down to a speed of 40kph when getting close to the toll booths, he said the original design enables more cars to pass through at speeds of 60kph to 70kph.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,