Taiwan is vying with China and South Korea for the opportunity to host the 2022 World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS World Congress), the Intelligent Transportation Society of Taiwan said on Thursday.
Society president Chang Yung-chang (張永昌), who is also president of Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co, said Taiwan is to make a presentation for its bid in September, with voting scheduled for April next year in Fukuoka, Japan.
Should Taiwan be selected to host the event in 2022, it would be held in Taipei, Chang said, adding that it applied to host the 2009 congress, but lost to Singapore.
Regarding the significance of hosting the event, Chang said that many nations are trying to facilitate the development of “smart cities,” the key to which is the development of intelligent transport systems.
In Taiwan, the best example of such a system would be the installation of an electronic toll collection system along national freeways, which the nation spent 15 years developing, he added.
Several nations, including Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and the Philippines, have expressed interest in working with his firm to develop similar systems, Chang said.
The nation’s high-speed rail network has won numerous accolades, including the ITS World Congress Hall of Fame Industry Award last year, he added.
Taipei is an example of a smart city, Chang said, adding that all of the nation’s accomplishments would be presented to members of the congress in September.
“It is time to market Taiwan to the world,” he said.
China has proposed holding the 2022 congress in Shenzhen, while South Korea has suggested Jeju Island as host, Chang said, adding that both countries have hosted the event before.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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