Additional transportation capacity from Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (台灣高鐵) and bus companies across the nation will cover any shortfall in transportation capacity on May 1, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, as it presented its contingency plan in response to the Taiwan Railway Labor Union’s plan to strike on Workers’ Day.
The work stoppage is estimated to affect transportation services for 358,000 passengers, said the ministry, which oversees the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA).
About 13,000 of the TRA’s 15,000 employees are members of the union, which on Tuesday said that, based on its survey, more than 90 percent of the its drivers would not work on Workers’ Day to protest a government plan to corporatize the agency.
Photo: CNA
TRA Director-General Du Wei (杜微) told a ministry news conference yesterday that the agency estimated it would require help in transporting 211,000 passengers on service lines in western Taiwan, 41,000 passengers across eastern Taiwan, and 106,000 for local and ancillary service lines.
The TRA estimated that the high-speed rail could help transport 90,000 passengers, while highway bus services could assist in transporting 136,000 passengers in western Taiwan, Du said.
In the east, bus operators have said they could offer 82,000 seats to assist the TRA, he said, adding that MRT and city bus lines would be used to ferry passengers in local areas serviced by ancillary lines.
Photo: CNA
A “train-like program” — in essence, buses on routes following the railway tracks bearing the same designation as the train lines — of 594 buses would provide 23,760 seats in total, Director-General of Highways Chen Wen-jui (陳文瑞) said.
The TRA is still trying to convince train drivers mot to strike, Du added.
Freeway Bureau Traffic Division Director Tsai Ming-che (蔡明哲) estimated that the strike would not increase highway traffic volume and said contingency plans are in place if it does.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kuo-tsai (王國材) apologized for the inconvenience caused by the impending strike, but said he would not give up any chance to turn the situation around before Workers’ Day.
Wang said that he was “unhappy” over the TRA strike, because it is causing the agency to lose established clientele.
He urged the union to reconsider and not harm passengers’ interests.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS