The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) plans to open bidding this week for the creation of a smart transportation rental platform for more than 1,700 vehicle rental companies nationwide.
The ministry on Saturday said that the system is expected to go online at the end of this year.
A mobile platform would facilitate vehicle rental services not only for locals but also foreigners who visit the country, the ministry said.
Working with the National Joint Association of Rental Car of the Republic of China, the ministry said it has obtained letters of intent from more than 600 companies.
If the platform is created, renting a vehicle in Taiwan would be as easy as logging in to a mobile app, the ministry said, adding that services would also include chauffeurs.
The platform would be listed among package deals offered by tourism agencies or the Taiwan Pass program, the ministry said.
The Taiwan Pass is an electronic ticket offering time and location-specific discounts for different modes of travel and destinations recommended by local governments.
The platform would hopefully provide more flexibility regarding travel packages or programs, the ministry said.
Taichung, and Miaoli, Changhua and Nantou counties have been selected to test the platform, it said.
The platform would also enable users to pick up a vehicle at one location and return it at another, the ministry said.
The ministry said it would be opening the bidding online this week and would be holding an information session on March 10, adding that it expects to choose a candidate in April.
The company that wins the bid would be tasked with managing the platform, integrating existing rental company services into the system and charging rental companies for joining it, while the ministry would levy a fee on the company running the system, it said.
The company would be expected to provide data on the platform so that the government would have a point of reference for future policies, it said.
Association president Lin Chien-liang (林建良) said that there was widespread support in the industry for the platform.
The number of vehicles made available for the system would not be a problem, as long as there is business to be had, he added.
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
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching