Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) officials yesterday apologized for delays to the MRT system’s connection to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that set the project completion date back by six months.
Bowing at a news conference, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Commuications Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁), Bureau of High Speed Rail Director-General Allen Hu (胡湘麟) and bureau chief engineer Chung Wei-li (鍾維力) apologized, saying that the launch date for the airport MRT line would be delayed.
It was the sixth delay since the project was announced in 2002. The project is to connect the airport directly to the MRT’s Taipei Main Station, stopping at Jhongli Township (中壢) and the Taoyuan High Speed Rail Station.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The MRT line is still undergoing trial runs and the primary reason for its delay is six of the 46 test items failing to meet contract standards, Hu told the news conference.
According to the contract, terminal-to-terminal MRT trains must travel at an average speed of 60kph, while trains that stop at each station must travel at an average speed of 45kph.
The trains currently travel at 57km and 42km per hour respectively, Hu said.
The speed has affected the expected time of arrival of trains on one-way trips, which was set at 35 minutes from Taipei Main Station to Taoyuan airport, the ministry said, adding that the line took 36 to 37 minutes to make a single one-way trip.
The time between trains, standing at three minutes and 15 seconds, does not meet the three minutes stated in the contract, Hu said.
While the bureau constructed the line, Taoyuan Metro Corp was expected to handle the line’s operations, the ministry said, adding that both sides were at odds on how to conduct simulated service and trial runs.
The bureau wanted Taoyuan Metro Corp to allocate more personnel for the trial runs in the hopes of becoming more familiar with the system, the ministry said, adding that the company was adamant that it would start simulated services only after all of the trial runs meet contract standards.
The ministry said that if all goes according to plan, the line could start operating at the end of the year, but due to previous letdowns it was not going to set a date for the commencement of services.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS