Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors yesterday blamed the company behind the Neihu-Muzha MRT Line, Bombardier Inc, for failing to put enough effort into fixing the line, urging the Taipei City Government to demand the company abide by the contract and fix the system as soon as possible.
The Neihu-Muzha Line has experienced 58 malfunctions or system breakdowns since it began running on July 4. Bombardier’s systems division vice president Mick Franzetta visited Taiwan after the first system breakdown on July 10. However, the company failed to send chief project engineer David Anderson and his team members to inspect the system, DPP Taipei City Councilor Lee Chien-chan (李建昌) said yesterday at the Taipei City Council.
DPP Taipei City councilors Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) and Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) also condemned Bombardier for failing to explain the reasons behind the frequent malfunctions or to ensure system safety for MRT passengers.
PHOTO: HUNG MIN-LUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“Since the line opened, all we get is apologies from city government officials and unclear explanations from them. Bombardier representatives never show up and offer an explanation,” Hsu said.
The councilors further condemned the city government for considering returning the Muzha Line to its original Matra system while suspending the Neihu Line for an inspection, and urged the city government to focus its efforts on making the Neihu-Muzha Line work.
“The Neihu Line cost NT$60 billion [US$1.8 billion] to build. It would be a terrible decision to give up on the line because of the problematic system integration,” Lee said.
In response to the councilors’ calls for Bombardier to offer a clear explanation and apology for the problem-plagued line, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the company had apologized to the city government for the problems, and promised to spare no effort to raise the system’s reliability to 99 percent by mid-November.
“The person who should apologize to passengers is me, and I will take full responsibility to make sure the line will soon be running normally,” he said.
Taipei City Secretariat Deputy Director Tan Gwo-guang (譚國光), spokesman for the line, said there were 130 technicians from Bombardier’s Taiwan branch stationed at the line’s operations center, taking responsibility for system maintenance.
Hau promised that the city government would not give up on the Neihu Line. Switching the Muzha Line back to the Matra system and suspending the Neihu Line would be the last option and a temporary one to help stabilize the system.
“We are weighing the different options for stabilizing the system, but ultimately, the Neihu-Muzha Line will only run on a single system, and that system is the Bombardier one,” he said.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
RSS