Thousands of people flooded into the eight stations of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) for the first day of ticket sales yesterday, but frequent malfunctions in the booking system made a lot of people unhappy.
With official operations set to begin on Friday, THSRC began selling tickets yesterday for the first 10 days of operation.
Ticket counters opened at 6am.
PHOTO: LO PEI-TER, TAIPE TIMES
To encourage more people to try the new rail system, the company announced last week that it would offer a 50 percent discount on the fares for the test runs and would also sell 50,000 commemorative tickets.
Apparently attracted by the reduced prices or the novelty of the new rail system, people started to line up in front of the ticket booths at every THSRC station on Monday evening in the hopes of being among the first passengers of the nation's first north-south high-speed railway.
The line will run between Banciao (板橋), Taipei County, and Tsoying (左營) in Kaohsiung City.
A standard ticket between Banciao and Tsoying costs NT$1,460 (US$45) for an economy-class seat and NT$2,390 for a business-class seat.
But the patience of those in line was sorely tested yesterday by frequent errors in the booking process, including malfunctioning vending machines and credit-card machines.
Some people complained that it took 20 to 30 minutes to purchase one ticket.
Others were upset that the vending machines only returned coins, not bills.
THSRC executive director Ou Chin-der (
He said the company had not expected the huge volume of bookings, which caused the system to crash.
"We expect to sell 30,000 tickets a day ? obviously we underestimated demand," Ou said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆) visited the Banciao station and was not happy with what he saw.
"The high speed rail is such an advanced system, but its ticketing system is so backwards," he said.
Tsai said that regardless of the reason for yesterday's snafus, THSRC needed to find the problem and resolve it immediately.
He said that there was no excuse for such errors.
As of 8pm, THSRC said it had sold 81,168 tickets.
Ticket booths were scheduled to remain open until 10pm, but the company decided to close the lines in the afternoon to help ease congestion in the stations.
Company officials decided not to accept ticket requests from anyone who arrived at the Banciao Station after 2:30pm and later instituted similar measures at the other stations.
THSRC will resume selling tickets for trains running from Friday to Jan. 14 at 6am today.
Once tickets for the first 10 days' trains are sold out -- a total of 380 trains -- the company will halt ticket sales.
Samuel Lin (林鵬良), deputy chief operations officer of THSRC's Railway Operation Division, said last night that trains No. 401 and No. 403 on Saturday are already sold out.
Unlike the Taiwan Railway Administration's policy of selling standing-room tickets when there are no more seats available on its trains, THSRC will only sell tickets for seats.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
CHIP EXCEPTION: An official said that an exception for Taiwanese semiconductors would have a limited effect, as most are packaged in third nations before being sold The Executive Yuan yesterday decried US President Donald Trump’s 32 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods announced hours earlier as “unfair,” saying it would lodge a representation with Washington. The Cabinet in a statement described the pledged US tariffs, expected to take effect on Wednesday next week, as “deeply unreasonable” and “highly regrettable.” Cabinet spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said that the government would “lodge a solemn representation” with the US Trade Representative and continue negotiating with Washington to “ensure the interests of our nation and industries.” Trump at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday announced a 10 percent baseline tariff on most goods
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats