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MOTC initiatives widely unknown

A survey conducted by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) suggested yesterday that some important measures initiated by the ministry remain unknown to the general public.

Only 16.6 percent from the poll of 1,067 people surveyed knew they can call a 0800-number and inform the ministry about broken traffic signals or poorly maintained roads.

While the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) announced last year that passengers could pick up tickets in convenience stores starting some time this year, nearly 63 percent replied that they were not aware of the announcement.

Meanwhile, only about 38 percent said they knew that TRA offers a train service allowing passengers to travel with their cars.

Another lesser known measure is the mutual recognition of drivers' licenses between Japan and Taiwan, which took effect in September last year and is only known to around 38 percent of the survey population.

And since August last year, the Taiwan Post Co has begun to provide a half-day fast-delivery service to residents in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. More than 60 percent of the population, however, said they knew nothing about the service.

While more than 50 percent of the respondents said they knew restaurants can now offer to call taxis on behalf of customers who have had too much to drink, 34 percent said they did not know they can also designate a sober companion to operate vehicles on their behalf when they are drunk.

Both methods were heavily promoted by the ministry to reduce drunk-driving accidents.

The telephone survey was conducted in November last year, with a total of 1,067 valid samples being collected. Questionnaires were designed to measure the public's knowledge of and satisfaction with transportation policies and services, ranging from aviation, railways and tourism to the weather forecast.

In general, the weather forecast service garnered the highest average score, getting 76.53 out of 100. The TRA, on the other hand, had the lowest score among all other MOTC departments (70.53).

Some of the better known measures include allowing scooters with cylinder capacity of more than 550cc to be driven on expressways (83.9 percent) and renewing driving licenses and vehicle registrations at the 7-Eleven and Hi-Life convenient stores (60 percent).

Su Yuan-chiung (蘇媛瓊), chief of the MOTC's statistics department, said the survey also found that the continual rise of the price of gas, particularly after it exceeded NT$30 per liter, made 40 percent of motorists decide to reduce the use of their cars. On average, drivers cut their use of cars 3.3 times per week, she said.

She added that close to 20 percent of the respondents said they now refrained from taking cabs ever since the rate went up last year.
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