Automated traffic lights that give priority to public transportation were put into operation on Sunday along Tainan’s green bus line, after the successful completion of a trial period.
Speaking at a news conference held to announce the launch the system, the Tainan City Government’s Bureau of Transportation director Chang Cheng-yuan (張政源) said that the lights are the nation’s first traffic management system that prioritizes public transportation on regular traffic lanes, as opposed to dedicated bus lanes.
The traffic lights that are installed on intersections along the the bus route between Tainan Railway Station and Sinhua District’s (新化) Sinhua Railway Station were built in the absence of a light railway or a rapid bus transport system in the city, Chang said.
Photo: Hung Jui-chin, Taipei Times
“The system is rare even globally,” he said.
During the trial period, the system shaved an average of five minutes off the time buses spent waiting at traffic lights during peak hours and three minutes during off-peak hours on each trip, which reduced the journey times by 10 percent, the bureau said.
COMMUTE-TIMES CUT
The system is expected to cut 6,705 hours per year from commutes, representing an estimated NT$14 million (US$427,116) in added productivity, and is to decrease carbon emissions by 24 tonnes per year, the bureau said.
Tainan Deputy Mayor Tseng Hsu-cheng (曾旭正) said that the system would increase the efficiency of public buses and encourage Tainan residents to use them more frequently, adding that the city plans to implement the system on other bus lines.
The system is to be installed on the city’s red line and green line next year, the bureau said, while the yellow, orange and brown lines are to receive the system in 2017, with a budget of NT$42 million.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS