Mobile apps developed by the Freeway Bureau and the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) have been integrated into the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ plans to ease congestion on the Chiang Wei-Shui Freeway (Freeway No. 5) over the Mid-Autumn Festival and Double Ten National Day next month.
The ministry was criticized after heavy congestion on the freeway for 32 consecutive hours on the first two days of the Dragon Boat Festival in June.
With two long weekends next month — Oct. 1 to Oct. 4 for the Mid-Autumn Festival and Oct. 9 to Oct. 11 for Double Ten National Day — the bureau yesterday said that the apps, which provide traffic information, would share their information.
Photo: CNA
The Freeway 1968 app has an icon that can be tapped to access information related to Freeway No. 5, the bureau said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told reporters at a news conference that if motorists want to bypass Freeway No. 5, they would have to know the alternative routes and traffic conditions on them.
“The alternative routes to Freeway No. 5 are Highway No. 2 and Highway No. 9, but drivers would want to know which route would get them to their destinations the fastest from where they are,” Lin said. “This information should be available, but it would be a hassle and dangerous for drivers to switch between apps to find it.”
“Therefore, it was necessary to integrate the apps so people can make informed decisions,” he said.
The Freeway 1968 app has been downloaded about 3.8 million times and the Highway to Happiness app more than 1 million times, he said, adding that their combined data allow more drivers to access traffic updates.
The ministry has investigated every avenue to tackle congestion issues on Freeway No. 5, Lin said.
However, whether they are effective would only be determined after they are tested over the holidays, he said.
Motorists can help ease congestion by using the apps to plan their routes and complying with the bureau’s measures, he said.
The apps would provide drivers estimated travel times to help them decide whether to use Highway No. 9 between New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) and Yilan County’s Toucheng Township (頭城), or alternative routes between Toucheng and Keelung’s Nuannuan District (暖暖), the bureau said.
Drivers can find expected travel times if they want to travel from Sun Yat-Sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) or the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) to reach the Nangang (南港) Interchange in Taipei to access Freeway No. 5, including congestion data for feeder roads on southbound and northbound lanes, the bureau said.
For drivers who are not familiar with alternative routes, a Google GPS icon under the name of the route is displayed on the apps, it said.
Freeway Bureau Director-General Chao Hsin-hua (趙興華) said that traffic volumes on Freeway No. 5 over the summer rose by 20 percent on weekdays and 24 percent on weekends.
As 50 percent of the vehicles that exit the Hsuehshan Tunnel access the Suhua Highway, the Freeway 1968 app has been updated to provide reports for travel between Suao (蘇澳) and Dongao (東澳) townships in Yilan, Chao said.
Similar information is available on the Highway to Happiness app, the DGH said.
Among other measures, the bureau is to close the Shiding (石碇) and Pinglin (坪林) interchanges at certain hours and enforce a high-occupancy vehicle policy from 6am rather than 7am to ensure smooth traffic flow on Freeway No. 5, Lin said.
The DGH urged people to use public transport to help ease traffic on the long weekends, adding that there would be discounts on express bus services from Taipei to the east coast.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
COGNITIVE WARFARE: Allegations that the documents were proof that the former US envoy tried to smuggle alcohol were designed to manipulate public opinion Leaked documents related to customs clearance procedures for vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) that have been circulating on the Internet appear to be an attempt to manipulate public opinion against the government, a source said on Sunday. A post on online platform Baoliao Commune (爆料公社) on Sunday showed documents it said were evidence that Hsiao had smuggled alcohol through customs with the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and said that the documents were part of a 4GB data dump of confidential material acquired by hackers. In a rebuttal, the source said that they were not confidential documents, but rather