New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday said he hopes that mechanical problems on the new line connecting Taipei’s MRT metropolitan railway system to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport would be resolved after contractors put the date for the completion of the project back again on Thursday.
“The project matters a lot to many people,” Chu said, urging the authorities to fix the problem as soon as possible.
Originally set to start operations by the end of this year, the project has been experiencing system instability since March, when related system stability work should have already been completed.
Bureau of High Speed Rail Director-General Allen Hu (胡湘麟) said that although the stability of the railway has been improving recently, it remains unclear whether the line would be able to start operations by the end of the year as planned.
The project’s contractors may be fined NT$12 million (US$383,239) per day for each day the project runs over its due date, up to a maximum of NT$2.5 billion, the bureau said.
However, it is feared, however, that operations of the new line would be postponed until next February, sources familiar with the project said.
There are 14 stations along the 35km line that links Taipei Main Station and the airport.
The trains are to run every 10 minutes during rush hour and every 15 minutes during other periods, taking 35 minutes to travel between the two points, the bureau said.
It said there would be two types of service, express and local, which would alternate throughout the day. The fare for both services is to be the same, although the exact figure has not yet been decided, the bureau said.
Each train is to have a capacity of 855 passengers and 5,200kg of luggage, according to the bureau.
The ticketing system on the line would support all types of public transportation cards currently in use, including Taipei’s EasyCard, the bureau said.
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