Heavy traffic was recorded on the freeways yesterday as travelers hurried home to enjoy Lunar New Year's eve dinners with their families.
Many sought to take advantage of toll-free hours between 12am and 6am.
The Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau calculated that traffic during the toll-free period was approximately 4.6 times more than normal. During the six hour period, about 464,000 vehicles swarmed freeways.
By 11am, close to 1 million cars had been counted.
The number of vehicles that passed through some toll plazas exceeded the weekday average by as much as 50 percent. These included Yangmei (楊梅), Zaociao (造橋), Houli (后里), Yuanlin (員林), Dounan (斗南), Sinying (新營) and Sinshih (新市) on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway, as well as some others on the Formosa and Chiang Wei-shui freeways.
The bureau announced that traffic topped 1.44 million vehicles at 3pm.
Overall, freeway traffic flowed smoothly, apart from minor congestion around some of the bigger rest areas. The bureau said the implementation of the High Occupancy Vehicle Control policy and the decision to waive toll fees had paid dividends.
Meanwhile, heavy fog caused the airports in Kinmen and Matsu to close yesterday morning, forcing the cancelation of a few flights.
Homebound travelers were stranded at the airports in Songshan and Kaohsiung all morning. At one point, Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆) instructed Keelung Harbor to make preparations to ferry travelers who had hoped to fly to the islands.
However, the fog gradually cleared and the airport at Kinmen was re-opened by noon. The majority of afternoon flights also resumed.
Matsu's airport also re-opened briefly at around noon, allowing one Uni Air flight to arrive. But the airport was closed again at 2:45pm and all other afternoon flights were canceled.
In railway news, express train No.1067 bound for Hualien broke down between Nanao (南澳) and Hoping (和平), Ilan County, and was forced to stop in a tunnel.
The train was scheduled to arrive at 10:45pm on Friday night, but the breakdown caused it to arrive two hours late.
Anxious passengers tried in vain to call family members from their cellphones, but the tunnel made it impossible.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
Nearly 800 Indian tourists are to arrive this week on an incentive tour organized by Indian company Asian Painted Ltd, making it the largest tour group from the South Asian nation to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic. The travelers are scheduled to arrive in six batches from Sunday to Feb. 25 for five-day tours, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The tour would take the travelers, most of whom are visiting Taiwan for the first time, to several tourist sites in Taipei and Yilan County, including tea houses in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空), Dadaocheng (大稻埕) and Ximending (西門町) areas. They would also visit