Less than 24 hours after opening the new Panchiao-Nankang line to the public, Taipei's MRT network experienced two sets of train-stopping technical problems that officials said yesterday were unrelated.
Yesterday morning, a computer broke down on the new east-west rapid transit line, giving out false signals to trains and interrupting service for five to 10 minutes, said Taipei Rapid Transit Corp spokesperson Henry Chen (陳文福). The cause of the computer failure is not yet known, MRT officials said.
On Friday evening at 8:45pm, the high-voltage power system on the Panchiao-Nankang line failed, with trains in both directions interrupted until 10:10pm.
Officials from the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC), which is responsible for maintenance and service of the MRT network, and the Department of Rapid Transit Systems (DORTS), which is in charge of construction for the network, met at the main MRT control center near the Taipei Railway Station on Friday night immediately following the power failure.
But their preliminary meeting failed to reveal the cause of the problem, Chen said.
The president of the TRTC said it was too soon to confirm whether it was the responsibility of the TRTC or the city government's DORTS.
"We're not ready to say yet who's responsible, so we're [DORTS and TRTC] working on the problem together," said TRTC president Richard Chen (
"Everything's back to normal now, it's completely normal," said TRTC spokesperson Henry Chen. Safety on the line had not been affected, he said.
But the TRTC president was less optimistic.
"It's too soon to tell, but you'll need to ask DORTS for details," he said.
DORTS director Chiang Yao-tsung (
Richard Chen said the signal computer problem yesterday morning was also unrelated to a series of main signal computer failures that have plagued the MRT system since a new computer was put into use in early November.
Operation on the Nankang-Panchiao line yesterday and the day before was locally controlled and did not go through the main signal computer, Chen said.
The day before the Hsintien line opened on Nov. 11, the main computer failure caused trains to stop in tunnels resulting in near collisions between trains travelling in the same direction.
At a press conference commemorating Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
Ma said yesterday that a report detailing the responsibilities for recent failures in the MRT's systems was on his desk pending review.
A section of the Panchiao-Nankang line from Taipei City Government to Lungshan Temple opened to the public at 1pm on Friday.
The new line is the first to connect the north-south Hsintien, Chungho, Tamshui and Mucha lines into a unified network.
Ridership on the entire MRT network exceeded 700,000 people on the first day of the new line's operations, far exceeding the TRTC's initial estimates of 600,000 to 630,000 riders per day.
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