High-speed Railway Brings One-day Living Circle to Taiwan’s Western Corridor

        After eight years of work and an investment of NT$480.6 billion, Taiwan’s first high-speed railway began operating on Jan. 5. This new railway, the biggest build-operate-transfer (BOT) project in the world, reaches 345 kilometers and carries trains at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour, slashing the rail travel time between Taipei and Kaohsiung from the original four hours to just 90 minutes. It also links all of the major cities along Taiwan’s western corridor into a single metropolitan belt. Eventually it will combine the counties and cities within the belt into three metropolitan areas and achieve the goal of transforming the western transportation corridor into a “one-day living circle.”

        The Ministry of Transportation and Communications indicates that each high-speed railway station will develop into a regional transportation hub that, together with the railroad, mass rapid transit, and public bus systems will constitute a transportation network. The resulting convenient transportation facilities will shorten transportation time and lower costs, and thus help attract high-tech personnel and domestic and foreign companies alike to neighboring science parks, industrial zones, and biotech parks, thereby forming industrial clusters and heightening the willingness of enterprises to invest. The high-speed trains stop at 10 stations, from north to south: Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. Large high-speed rail station zones are planned for five locations--Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, and Tainan--and these special station zones, together with nearby industrial zones, will attract technology, financial, leisure, and entertainment industries and do much to promote the development of tourism in those areas.

        The Executive Yuan has provided a budget within its Economic Development Vision for 2015 for the construction over the next three years, in cooperation with county and city governments, of highway and railroad access systems for the high-speed railway stations; these systems will make use of the Taiwan Railway Administration’s tracks within metropolitan areas to build shuttle stations that will enhance the service standards of rail transportation within those areas. In addition, the Executive Yuan has decided to improve the efficiency of transshipment by building freeways and expressways, and by improving congested sections of roadways; to upgrade mobility and accessibility between town and township roadways within living circles and the central cities of those living circles, and between the central cities of different living circles, by developing living-circle roadways and connecting them with the freeway/expressway network; and to expand the scope of services and applications throughout all the counties and cities of Taiwan via the continuous promotion and expansion of “intelligent traffic control,” “smart buses,” and “e-transportation services.” The goal of all this is to provide three-hour round-trip travel between all major cities as well as the linking of international harbors, airports, and science parks by freeways and expressways so as to provide a 10-minute access ratio of 85%.

        For more information related to the high-speed railway, please visit this website: http://www.hsr.gov.tw; to find out more about the Executive Yuan’s accompanying construction plans, please consult http://www.ey.gov.tw/lp.asp?ctNode=450&CtUnit=308&BaseDSD=7&mp=1.

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