The Taiwan Railways Administration yesterday said it would start trial runs next week of a “real-name” ticketing system for residents of Hualien and Taitung counties purchasing round-trip tickets to the east coast during the Dragon Boat Festival.
The system, which is to begin its trial run on Wednesday next week, has been proposed as a way to ensure that those born in Hualien and Taitung counties can purchase tickets to go home during the big three national holidays — the Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival — when tickets are in high demand.
The real-name system is to apply to passengers on the eastbound Puyuma Express to Taitung, departing Shulin Station at 7:43am on June 9, and to passengers on the westbound Puyuma Express train to Shulin, departing Taitung at 2:45pm on June 12.
Those who want to purchase tickets for those two trains can start booking tickets at 6am on Wednesday next week, the TRA said.
Only passengers whose personal identification card numbers begin with the letters U or V — which are assigned to people born in Hualien and Taitung — will be able to buy tickets under the real-name system.
Each person can purchase no more than three roundtrip tickets using three qualified ID cards, it said.
The last three digits of the ID cards will appear on the tickets for onboard inspection, it said.
TRA transportation department section chief Chen Yu-mou (陳裕謀) said the system does not apply to those who were not born in Hualien or Taitung, but live there because of work, school or other reasons.
The TRA said the results of the trial run would be included in a comprehensive report to be submitted to the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which had asked the agency to test the system for six months.
In related news, Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) faced questions over his decision not to cancel highways tolls between 11pm and 6am during the four-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, with several lawmakers saying the ministry should persuade long-distance bus operators to offer larger discounts to travelers during those hours.
Hochen said the ministry made the decision because driving at night increases the risks of traffic accidents, adding that drivers are more likely to speed if the toll is waived.
The ministry should work with law enforcement officers to crack down on speeding, rather than canceling toll-free hours, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Hsuen-sheng (陳雪生) and Independent Legislator Chao Cheng-yu (趙正宇) said.
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