The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) yesterday asked the Ministry of Health and Welfare to consider if it is still necessary to have priority seats on public transport systems after it received petitions from many netizens to scrap the practice.
The priority seats on public transport systems are installed according to Article 53 of the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法), which stipulates that public transportation facilities without reserved seats shall set priority seats for disabled and elderly people, as well as women and children.
The same article requires that priority seats should be available at a ratio of at least 15 percent of total seats.
Photo: Chang Wen-chuan, Taipei Times
The seats should be located close to the doors of a train, car or bus, and the floor between the priority seats and the entrance should be flat and without any obstacles, and, if necessary, marked with signs, according to the article.
The MOTC said that it has been receiving petitions from the public to abolish the priority seats since the government started enforcing the act, adding that it has also received counterproposals asking the government to increase the number of priority seats and to mandate that the seats be yielded to those who need them through amending the act or enacting a new law.
“Public opinion is divided on whether the priority seats should be made available on public transportation systems. Since it involves the change in a government policy, we have asked the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the administrative authority enforcing the People with Disabilities Right Protection Act, to take the opinions into consideration and assess the feasibility of the proposals,” the MOTC said.
Photo: He Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Without a change in policy, the MOTC said that it could only remind passengers to yield the priority seats when they see people who need them.
Public transport operators should help promote the idea that yielding seats to others in need is a virtue, it said.
The policy of installing priority seats, which are called “universal love seats” in Taiwan, has many supporters.
However, critics said that the policy is unnecessary and has generated false perceptions, such as the seats should not be used by people who are not disabled or those who do not sit on the priority seats do not need to yield their seats to people who need them.
“I really think that the policy should be scrapped,” Internet user Neal Wu (吳子雲) said. “All seats on public transportation facilities should be priority seats. It is you, not the seats, who can show love and kindness to others.”
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