The Bureau of High Speed Rail yesterday denied that former premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) had instructed the bureau to facilitate the launch of the Airport Rail by considering the acceptance of “non-conformities with the contractual requirements” at reduced prices as long as they would not hinder safety, adding that the bureau still aims to launch the system by the end of March.
Bureau head engineer Chung Wei-li (鍾維力) said that Mao did not give the instruction, and the bureau is waiting for the contractor to finish testing the system, while addressing any possible system errors.
Chung said that the contractor has yet to fulfill its contractual obligations.
While the contract states that the Airport Rail’s operation time between Taipei Railway Station and the Terminal One of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport must be 35 minutes, it currently takes 37 minutes to travel between the two stations, Chung said.
Additionally, the contract states that the system should be able to deploy trains at intervals of three minutes, but the system can only achieve an interval of 3 minutes, 15 seconds, he said.
“The contractor has been taking a long time to test the system, which has delayed the launch of the Airport Rail for almost one year,” he said. “In view of the public interest, we are assessing whether we can launch the system based on the status quo, provided that the system is safe and reliable.”
Chung said that the contractor must work on enhancing the capacity of the Airport Rail to fulfill the terms of the contract after the system is launched, adding that the contractor would be fined if it fails to deliver the contractually required results in time.
The Taipei MRT system applied the same model when it first began operations. The MRT system was able to run trains at five-minute intervals initially, but it is now capable of dispatching trains at three-minute intervals following testing after the system was launched, Chung said.
He said that the bureau is still negotiating with the contractor over the proposal’s viability, while it has yet to submit an official assessment to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Executive Yuan for approval.
“We could wait until the contractor meets all the requirements stated in the contract to launch the system, if the public is fine with that,” Chung said.
Asked why the option of accepting non-conformity with the contractual requirements at reduced cost was mentioned many times in the documents related to the launch of the Airport Rail, Chung said that Article 72 of the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法) upholds such action, which had been raised in bureau discussions with the Public Construction Commission.
The article permits such practices if the system’s non-conformity “neither hinders the safety or use required, nor decreases the general function or the function designated by the contract.”
However, Chung said that the measure should only be employed as a last resort, in which the government and the contractor decide to terminate the partnership.
The bureau is not planning to go to that direction, he said.
Based on the terms of the contract, the system should be able to deploy trains every five minutes in the initial stages of operation.
However, Chung said that the interval between trains was six minutes.
To meet the contract requirements, the operator would need to change the programming controlling train deployment, he said.
He said that the goal of launching the Airport Rail system by the end of March remains unchanged, but the ministry would make an announcement on March 1 on any change to that plan.
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