The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) on Thursday and Friday tested a locally developed temporary speed restriction system intended to improve train safety, the railway administration said yesterday.
The system, developed by the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, was tested for the first time on a 51km section of the TRA’s North Link Line that runs from Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳) to Hualien County, the TRA said in a statement.
The administration was testing whether the system could detect objects on the tracks as a train traveling at various speeds approaches, it said.
Photo: CNA
The temporary speed restriction system works in tandem with “landslide detectors” to issue early warning signals to a train equipped with the automatic train protection system or the automatic train control system. When an object is detected on the track, those systems would be alerted and automatically stop or slow a train as a precautionary measure, it said.
The speed restriction system is expected to be installed at 15 high-risk railway sections by the end of next year, the TRA said.
The system can also work with warning detectors such as those for rockslides, vehicle intrusion and level crossings, TRA Director-General Du Wei (杜微) said.
The system was developed in response to a deadly crash in Hualien County last year, when a Taroko Express train carrying 496 passengers derailed and crashed into the wall of a tunnel after hitting a crane truck that had tumbled down a hill onto the tracks. Forty-nine people were killed.
The incident was Taiwan’s deadliest rail crash in seven decades, prompting calls for train safety to be improved.
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