Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) yesterday reiterated the ministry’s plan to eimplement a per kilometer traveled charge for freeway motorists in 2013.
Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁), director-general of the National Freeway Bureau, said motorists who have not installed on-board units (OBU) — a device needed to access the freeway electronic toll collection (ETC) system — or those who have not set up a prepaid account will be recorded using imaging technology.
He said the bureau would send these motorists a notice asking them to make payment within 14 to 20 days, adding that they would also be charged a transaction fee.
“If they fail to pay the tolls before the expiration date, they will be fined NT$3,000,” he said.
On whether the bureau would make installing OBUs or setting up prepaid accounts mandatory, Tseng said it would require public consensus and support from lawmakers on amendments to regulations.
The problems surrounding the ETC system resurfaced when the bureau said it would give a 10 percent discount on tolls to motorists who have OBUs or have set up prepaid accounts when they pass through the Taishan Toll Station on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (National Freeway No. 1) during peak hours, because construction work on the freeway could slow down the traffic.
While the bureau said the measure was meant to speed up traffic flow, some have criticized it as a means to benefit ETC system users and the Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co (FETC), the contractor that operates the ETC system.
About 1.1 million motorists own OBUs, accounting for approximately one-sixth of registered vehicle users. The average usage rate of OBUs is about 40 percent.
An OBU cost NT$1,199. To boost the number of ETC users, FETC has introduced “eTags,” which will be available to all motorists free of charge in February next year.
According to Mao, there are two conditions in the government’s build-operate-transfer contract with FETC that have likely hindered growth in the number of ETC users.
First is that motorists must pay out of their own pockets for the OBU, he said.
“The second condition is that the contract says the government will start charging freeway motorists by kilometer if the OBU usage rate reaches 65 percent, which means there will still be 35 percent of motorists who do not use the ETC system. We had estimated the situation would lead to a tremendous increase in operational costs,” Mao said.
“The conundrum facing the ETC system will never be solved unless we make OBUs free of charge. In addition, we should strive to raise the OBU usage rate to 90 percent to save on operational costs. To that end, at least half of 6 million registered vehicle owners should access the ETC system,” he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater