A call for tenders to create kiosks and indoor navigation systems to guide visitors inside Taipei Railway Station and facilitate evacuations during emergencies is to be launched next month, the Taipei City Government said yesterday.
The city government held a public hearing attended by IT firms to explain details of the bidding process.
The selected bidder would be required to deploy 8,000 to 13,000 indoor positioning devices, known as beacons, to give visitors directions in the railway station, as well as kiosks at eight locations, including Beimen MRT Station and Taipei City Mall, which are linked to the main station through underground passageways, guiding foreigners and other visitors to Taipei around the station, Taipei Traffic Engineering Office Liu Jui-lin (劉瑞麟) said.
By activating Bluetooth connections and an app on mobile devices, visitors would be able to open a map showing their location in the station and the way to their destination, such as underground shopping areas and the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) or High Speed Rail passenger platforms, Liu said.
The kiosks should be able to show users three-dimensional maps of all levels of the station, while electronic signs would be set up in the Beimen Station and Taipei Railway Station to inform people of the safest escape route in the case of an emergency, he said.
“The signs would be integrated. If there is smoke coming from Beimen, people need to know in which direction they should evacuate,” Liu said.
The project contractor is to be selected based on what value-added services bidders can provide the municipal government, which in turn would pay the contractor from revenue generated from two public parking lots on Civic Boulevard and firms who pay for advertisements in the app and in the station, he said.
“The routes in Taipei Railway Station are messy and people often get lost. So, the primary goal is to improve the signage,” Taipei Department of Transportation section head Chang Sheng-wan (張生萬) said.
Disaster prevention stations are to be established by the TRA at the behest of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications on the Taipei Railway Station’s second and third underground levels, Chang said.
The center is to integrate TRA, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp and High Speed Rail systems, thereby facilitating evacuation, he said.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
RSS