Three new high-speed rail stations are scheduled to become operational on Dec. 1, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Jian-yu (陳建宇) said at the weekend.
He said that Changhua and two other HSR stations in Miaoli and Yunlin counties “have absolutely no problem” in commencing operations on Dec. 1, when ticket prices for the bullet train system are to return to levels seen before a price hike in 2013.
Ticket price adjustments is one of the reasons that Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) secured legislative support for its financial restructuring plan, which was approved by shareholders last week.
The financial restructuring plan would extend the concession period by 35 years, reduce capital by 60 percent and raise NT$30 billion (US$917.15 million) in funds from government-affiliated shareholders. Shares held by the government would be increased from 20 percent to 40 percent, making the government the largest shareholder of the company.
THSRC chairman Victor Liu (劉維琪) said the company would not experience a shortage in funds once the financial restructuring plan is implemented. He said that the company would be able to invest more money in improving the safety and quality of the rail service, adding that it could export its knowledge of running the bullet train system to other countries.
According to the Bureau of High Speed Rail, Taiwan’s bullet train system was the first case in which Japan’s Shinkansen system exported its technology overseas. The smooth operation of the bullet train system also serves as the best example of how the Shinkansen system is able to be implemented in another country, the bureau said.
The bureau added that THSRC continues to research new ways to provide a quality train service.
As an example, the bureau said that a high-speed train conductor can check the seat availability on board using an application developed by the company.
The bureau said that Taiwan and Japan signed a memorandum of understanding on how to jointly promote the service in overseas markets, in which Japan exported the infrastructure and technology, and Taiwan shared its experience in operating the system.
Several countries have come to observe how the bullet train system is operated in Taiwan, including Brazil, Norway, India and Southeast Asian countries, the bureau said.
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