In response to a number of recent mishaps, the Taipei City Government announced yesterday that it would take the Maokong cable car system out of service every Monday to conduct regular inspections.
The new schedule will come into effect next week, when inspections and maintenance of the system's cabins, tires and other equipment will begin. However, the cable car may be opened to the public on a Monday if it is a national holiday, the city government said.
"Although the city government continues to have confidence in the cable car, we and the evaluation committee agreed that regular checkups are a necessary procedure -- especially for such a new system," Taipei City Secretariat Deputy Director Yang Hsi-an (
Yang said that the frequent equipment failures had put pressure on the city government and prompted it to cut the number of operating days to ensure the stability of the system.
The cable car suffered a major equipment failure last Saturday, which left some 300 visitors trapped in the cabins for more than two hours. Another four-hour shutdown took place on Tuesday after unusual noises were heard.
Statistics from the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) show that approximately 15,000 passengers take the gondola every day, and halting the service on Mondays will result in losses of around NT$750,000 per day.
While declining to discuss the financial loss, Yang said the city government would demand that French company POMA, the system's builder, supply more spare parts.
Lee Shu-chuan (李四川), director of the city's New Construction Department, said that POMA had not supplied sufficient spare parts such as screws and axles, which forced the department to find the materials in local shops when fixing the equipment failure last Saturday.
Yang said that although POMA had only assigned one engineer to stay on in Taiwan, the company was still responsible for overseeing maintenance of the system for a three-year period.
Yang said that as the system was at the point of "substantial completion," rather than final acceptance, the three-year guarantee period hadn't formally begun.
In response to concerns about running the system before final acceptance, Yang said the Taipei MRT system had also started operations at the substantial completion stage with no major problems.
"Running the system now gives us the chance to discover any issues that we would otherwise be unable to notice," he said.
Noting that POMA's other gondola system at Hualien's Ocean Park had experienced no serious equipment failures in five years, Yang said that the Maokong system was more complex because of its longer length and two sharp turns.
"The city government has been testing the system since January, and we are confident that the Maokong cable car's operations will eventually be as good as Taipei's MRT system," he added.
The cable car will operate from 9am to 10pm from Tuesday to Friday, and from 8:30am to 10pm on weekends and holidays.
Yang said the cable car may resume service on Mondays if regular checkups failed to identify any significant problems.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS