The government is proactive about resolving the issues facing the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT line, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said yesterday, adding that the line will not begin operations until it is certified to be safe.
The ministry made the statement after a committee it formed last month announced on Saturday that most problems facing the line have been addressed and it can begin operations soon.
Before President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration took office on May 20, Taoyuan Metro Corp had identified 4,522 abnormalities that occurred during the tests conducted by the Bureau of High Speed Rail and Marubeni Corp, the Japanese contractor in charge of building the line’s signaling system.
The metro company was at the time headed by Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒), now the chairman of China Airlines.
A suggestion that the ministry launch the line under safety conditions while contractors gradually meet contractual standards has drawn skepticism.
The same suggestion was allegedly made by the previous administration, but it was rejected by Ho and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), as the two insisted that contractors meet operations standards stated in the contract before inspection and acceptance of the system.
The committee’s announcement caused some people to question how the administration was able to address the large number of problems in such a short time, with some saying that the Taoyuan City Government accepted the proposal that it previously denied because it can launch the system and claim the public construction as its own accomplishment.
MOTC Deputy Minister Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said the administration was simply more active in addressing the problems.
The ministry had failed to resolve the dispute between Marubeni and its subcontractor Siemens, Wang said.
As Siemens was not able to enter the construction site to address the system’s errors due to the dispute, the system’s reliability was less than 70 percent, he added.
The committee has been engaged in professional discussions of the problems, Wang said, adding that the number of abnormalities was reduced from 4,522 to 25.
He also said that reliability was raised to 98 percent.
The line would be launched after its reliability reaches 99 percent and its safety is certified by a third party, Wang said.
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