Starting on Dec. 22, Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) passengers will be able to pick up their tickets at convenience stores after booking them online or over the telephone, the railway service said last week.
The service will begin simultaneously at 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, Hi-Life and OK convenience stores at 6am, which will help increase the number of access points for ticket sales to approximately 10,000 venues, the TRA said.
To collect the tickets, passengers would need to present their ID cards as well as their booking codes.
In addition to paying for the ticket, the TRA said passengers would need to pay a transaction fee of NT$8 per ticket. Currently, TRA passengers can only pick up tickets at train stations or designated post offices, which are only open during office hours.
The TRA said if passengers want to cancel an order, they can do so by returning to the convenience store where they collected the tickets, or a different branch of the same chain. If they paid by credit card, they can get a refund at a railway station.
In related news, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) started taking ticket orders for the New Year holiday period over the weekend.
The high-speed rail operator said it is offering a total of 600 services between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2. Passengers purchasing tickets 15 days in advance would get an early-bird discount of 30 percent, whereas those buying eight days in advance would get a 10 percent discount.
The TRA is to start selling tickets for the New Year holiday on Dec. 16.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said