Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said yesterday he would look into the responsibility of the builder of the MRT Muzha-Neihu Line system after the line was shut down for more than 20 minutes on Friday night because of human error.
Service was interrupted at 9:25pm on Friday after a sudden power outage at the MRT’s Jiannan Road Station. Service resumed at 10:05pm.
Hau said an engineer from the system builder, Bombardier Inc, accidentally hit the power switch while installing an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system at the station, causing the power outage.
“I’ve already asked Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation [TRTC] to look into Bombardier’s responsibility and we will demand that the company provide compensation for the loss,” Hau said in Taipei.
The system breakdown on Friday night was the eighth since operations began on July 4.
The problem-plagued line experienced three system breakdowns or malfunctions last week.
The line was closed for about 50 minutes on Tuesday because of a brake system malfunction on a train leaving Dazhi Station.
On Thursday morning, a burning smell filled a train heading south. The operation center stopped the train at Technology Building Station to evacuate passengers.
Taipei City Secretariat Deputy Director Tan Gwo-guang (譚國光), spokesman for the line, said the operation center received the information from some passengers at about 8am on Thursday and immediately evacuated about 200 passengers.
Tan said the smell was caused by the malfunction of the train’s brake pad, adding that the problem was fixed after the engineers installed a new brake pad, dismissing speculation that the train had caught fire.
The line is closed this weekend for inspection.
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