Motorists driving on freeways during the New Year holidays can calculate their estimated travel time with the help of the new Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said yesterday.
Kang Jhy-fu (康志福), deputy director of the bureau’s traffic management department, said motorists would be able to check online (1968.nfreeway.gov.tw) for the estimated travel time between two freeway interchanges or between two toll booths before leaving home.
They can also have a look at the traffic through online video feeds before deciding which route they should take.
“Once they are driving on the freeway, they can get updated information through electronic billboards installed along the way,” Kang said.
Taking the Hsinchu Interchange as an example, where Freeway No. 1 and Freeway No. 3 converge, Kang said that drivers in the northbound lanes would be able to decide which freeway to take with the help of the traffic information displayed on electronic billboards.
The billboards currently only warn motorists when there are traffic problems or heavy fog up ahead.
But the ITS will enable the billboards to show where there is heavy traffic and the estimated time needed to travel to reach the next interchange.
It will also inform drivers about information such as toll-free hours during the holidays.
Kang said the ITS was functioning at 76 electronic billboards and that the bureau was scheduled to have approximately 100 billboards across the country ready by the New Year holidays.
Approximately 300 are expected to be running before the Lunar New Year holidays, which begin on Jan. 25.
Kang said the bureau planned to improve the ITS by informing drivers when the shoulder of the road is open during heavy traffic and offering a traffic information-exchange system and automatic surveillance of the traffic in the tunnels.
The new services are scheduled to begin by May.
Meanwhile, Kang said that motorists could access the latest traffic information through global-positioning-system (GPS) devices. The bureau has provided traffic control information to the nation’s GPS service providers free of charge.
The ITS only monitors the traffic on seven freeways and 12 expressways on the West Coast.
In related news, the bureau said yesterday that all freeways would would be toll free from next Friday to Sunday between the hours of 12am and 7am to facilitate traffic flow.
In addition, the shoulder roads between Taoyuan and Jhongli (中壢) and between Sanying (三鶯) and Dasi (大溪) will be open to traffic during the holidays.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
RSS