Taipei Deputy Mayor Chen Ching-jun (陳景峻) yesterday questioned the realiability of the Taipei Police Department’s statistics on traffic violations and faulted the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) for removing seats on MRT carriages to boost passenger capacity.
TRTC vice president Chan Shih-tsung (詹仕聰) told review of the city’s transportation policies that the MRT Wenhu Line could handle passenger volumes during morning rush hour over the past four months, as the company had increased the number of services and boosted capacity.
He was interrupted by the deputy mayor, who said that a test carried out by the TRTC on Wenhu Line carriages’ seating was an “unnecessary” move, and that the company only conducted the test to avoid offending Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
When Chan said the experiment was conducted under Ko’s instruction, Chen accused the company of attempting to shift its responsibility, saying Ko simply asked for TRTC’s input on the possibility of alleviating crowding.
Chan said that an evaluation of the seating is ongoing and that the TRTC would give Ko a definite answer next month.
Chen took issue with Taipei Police Department statistics on the number of traffic violations issued last month.
Comparing the statistics with those in April, Chen said that the numbers were too close and could have been rigged.
For example, the total number of drunk-driving cases was 1,048 last month and 1,077 this month, and the total number of traffic violations recorded last month and this month was 24,047 last month and 24,098 respectively, he said.
Zhongzheng District Second Precinct Chief Yang Hung-cheng (楊鴻正) said that the number of traffic violations are in direct proportion to the size of a precinct’s staff and the overall development level of an area.
He said the number of drunk-driving cases are affected by the number of night markets and restaurants in a district, which likely produced the close numbers.
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