The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday proposed an amendment to railway regulations, allowing for surveillance of drivers’ cabins and additional training of personnel.
The ministry said the Regulations for Railway Transportation (鐵路行車規則) are due for wide-sweeping changes, as some clauses are outdated.
The amendment would allow the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) to install video and audio surveillance equipment in drivers’ cabins to improve railway security and oversight in the wake of the Oct. 21, 2018, derailment of a Puyuma Express train, which killed 18 people and injured more than 200.
The draft amendment also calls for additional training of railway personnel, changes to operation regulations, breath alcohol tests for staff before they can board a train and standards for employees to report physical ailments on the job, the ministry said.
Previous attempts to introduce such measures were hindered by opposition from drivers, the TRA said.
The amendment would give it the legal basis to implement the changes, it said, adding that it would discuss the potential policy changes with employees next week.
All of its EMU-500, EMU-600, EMU-700 and EMU-800 car models are being outfitted with surveillance systems, which was partly prompted by the killing of railway police officer Lee Cheng-han (李承翰) on July 3 last year, the TRA said.
Lee died from a stab wound inflicted by a 54-year-old man surnamed Cheng (鄭), who refused to pay full fare after he was found to have entered the train without a ticket.
The EMU-900 cars, which would eventually replace 589 cars, already have surveillance equipment installed, it said, adding that it plans to install surveillance systems on all Puyuma and Taroko series trains next year.
An unnamed driver yesterday said that drivers, due to the nature of their job, sometimes cannot leave their post to use the restroom, forcing them to use empty bottles in the cabin.
Surveillance footage of them relieving themselves would constitute a severe breach of privacy, he said.
Other drivers said they supported the measure, saying that some drivers were “too casual,” and the increased surveillance could improve their performance.
However, they added that footage should not be used as a basis to evaluate their performance.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,