The Taipei City Government has added 16 electric buses to its fleet, in a push to cut carbon emissions and noise pollution, the Taipei Department of Transportation told a news conference on Monday.
Shin-Shin Bus, a bus operator, has replaced 16 diesel-powered buses, which served the 236 and 251 shuttle lines, with electric vehicles, department Director Chen Hsueh-tai (陳學台) said, adding that the move was part of a planned decommissioning of aging buses.
Under the Executive Yuan directive for replacing all urban public buses with electric vehicles by 2030, Taipei began introducing electric buses to its fleet in 2018 and expects to have put 529 electric buses on the road by 2022, he said.
Photo: Tsai Szu-pei, Taipei Times
Prices for diesel-engined buses, which cost about NT$5 million (US$175,396) per vehicle, are initially cheaper than electric buses, but they pollute, require more expensive servicing and are more expensive to operate, Chen said.
Due to engine noise and vibrations, they are less comfortable for passengers, he added.
Electric buses cost from NT$10 million to NT$12 million, but they save costs, and offer more comfort and safety, he said.
Advanced driver-assistance system, which are standard on electric buses, could warn the driver of dangerous situations, for example when the gap between the bus and other vehicles is too small, when the driver unintentionally leaves a lane or drives at excessive speed, Chen said.
Taipei’s low-floored diesel buses are typically used for eight years, while properly maintained electric buses are expected to remain in service for about 12 years, he said.
Taipei this year granted subsidies to bus operators for the purchase of 258 electric buses and requested central government subsidies for 223 more vehicles, in a bid to meet the 2022 targets, Chen said.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires