One year after its corporatization, the state-owned Taiwan Railway Corp (TRC) is estimated to have sustained NT$12 billion (US$366.24 million) in losses, exceeding the NT$11.4 billion it lost in 2023. The company’s financial report after its corporatization showed that asset depreciation accounted for more than 30 percent of cost expenditure.
However, during the financial reforms of the Kaohsiung MRT and Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp, the central and local governments put a lot of effort into reducing the expenses accrued for depreciation. If the government can help reduce the depreciation of TRC’s expenses, it would fundamentally improve its cost structure and improve its financial performance.
TRC has not adjusted its ticket prices for nearly 30 years. If the ticket prices are not adjusted to reasonably reflect operating costs, it would be difficult for the rail operator to improve its service quality, or provide good salary packages to employees to retain them. That is not a sustainable solution for improving employee morale, customer service quality or safety.
Therefore, the government should assist TRC in creating a reasonable operating service environment and establish a mechanism to automatically adjust its fare rate structure — such as a pricing system based on the consumer price index — to reasonably reflect operating costs.
Ancillary business income is an important source of finance for railway companies in many countries. For example, Kyushu Railway Co, a constituent company of the Japan Railways Group, earns more than half of its total income from its ancillary business.
Most TRC stations are in city centers. Therefore, they should not only function as a railway station, but also strive to be the center of life for the surrounding area. The space around TRC stations can be better developed to provide food, clothing and hotels, so that tourism, travel, education and entertainment needs can be effectively met, thereby creating revenue for ancillary businesses and generating more travel and transportation demand.
Talent must be at the core of TRC for its sustainable development, because personnel play key roles in the organization’s growth. The company must prove to be profitable after corporatization, so that its employees will have confidence in the enterprise while the reasonable benefits and incentive systems would motivate them to stay. Through effective talent promotion, development and training, a learning-oriented organizational culture can be established.
In addition, the safety management system already introduced should be implemented by station staff, conductors, and maintenance and driving personnel, so that risk-management mechanisms are reflected in the daily work routines of frontline railway workers.
The labor union should also play an important role in the sustainable development of TRC. In addition to participating in the company’s development decisions, it should also consider the difficulties and disadvantages of TRC’s current operations and assist management personnel in communicating with colleagues at different organizational levels. A proper mechanism for terminating unsuitable employees must also be established. That would enable the development of a positive corporate culture, which would facilitate TRC to provide the public with a safer, more reliable, faster, more comfortable and friendlier transportation service.
Cheng Yung-hsiang is a professor in National Cheng Kung University’s Department of Transportation and Communication Management Science.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
US President Donald Trump has gotten off to a head-spinning start in his foreign policy. He has pressured Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States, threatened to take over the Panama Canal, urged Canada to become the 51st US state, unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America” and announced plans for the United States to annex and administer Gaza. He has imposed and then suspended 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico for their roles in the flow of fentanyl into the United States, while at the same time increasing tariffs on China by 10
As an American living in Taiwan, I have to confess how impressed I have been over the years by the Chinese Communist Party’s wholehearted embrace of high-speed rail and electric vehicles, and this at a time when my own democratic country has chosen a leader openly committed to doing everything in his power to put obstacles in the way of sustainable energy across the board — and democracy to boot. It really does make me wonder: “Are those of us right who hold that democracy is the right way to go?” Has Taiwan made the wrong choice? Many in China obviously
US President Donald Trump last week announced plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on eight countries. As Taiwan, a key hub for semiconductor manufacturing, is among them, the policy would significantly affect the country. In response, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) dispatched two officials to the US for negotiations, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) board of directors convened its first-ever meeting in the US. Those developments highlight how the US’ unstable trade policies are posing a growing threat to Taiwan. Can the US truly gain an advantage in chip manufacturing by reversing trade liberalization? Is it realistic to
About 6.1 million couples tied the knot last year, down from 7.28 million in 2023 — a drop of more than 20 percent, data from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs showed. That is more serious than the precipitous drop of 12.2 percent in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the saying goes, a single leaf reveals an entire autumn. The decline in marriages reveals problems in China’s economic development, painting a dismal picture of the nation’s future. A giant question mark hangs over economic data that Beijing releases due to a lack of clarity, freedom of the press
RSS