Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) ticket prices will not be raised for a year, Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said yesterday, after lawmakers questioned the legitimacy of price hikes, citing the operator’s incident record.
Hochen made the promise to lawmakers on the legislature’s Transportation Committee when faced with questions about three railway incidents on the west coast on Sunday night that disrupted service, affecting more than 10,000 passengers.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications had previously supported the TRA’s proposal to raise its ticket prices, which have not been adjusted for 22 years, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said.
However, incidents have happened one after another over the past two weeks, such as overhead electric cables breaking on Sunday, disrupting both southbound and northbound services, and the Puyuma Express derailing on Tuesday last week, Lin said.
The incidents have caused Premier William Lai (賴清德) and Hochen to think twice about raising ticket prices, as it is no longer a financial issue, he said.
“It has turned into a political issue and the TRA’s image is at stake. Consumers cannot possibly support a price hike from an agency that offers lousy service and allows incidents to happen frequently, even if prices have remained unchanged for 22 years,” he said.
Between January and August, 311 railway incidents happened in the TRA system, 30 of which were major, in addition to seven derailments and 18 regular incidents, DPP Legislator Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) said.
Meanwhile, about 200 incidents involved abnormalities detected during operations, Lee added.
“Like a pyramid, you have smaller incidents at the bottom, which could lead to major accidents at the top. This is the greatest concern that people should have with the railway system,” Lee said.
The ministry is to spend a month investigating each type of incident and finding ways to address them, Hochen said, adding that Sunday’s incidents showed that maintenance quality needs improvement.
“We will seek improvement through technology and recruit more workers to boost employees’ morale. We will show the public that the train system is improving,” he said.
Hochen also said that the ministry has rejected the TRA’s ticket price adjustment plan.
“The main reason is because the agency has yet to provide reliable service quality. Some of the data presented to us in the plan was analyzed based on unreasonable hypotheses. The ticket price will remain unchanged for another year,” he said.
The TRA must elevate its service quality and improve the punctuality of its trains before the plan can be discussed again, he added.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
RSS