Taipei's new MRT line suffers shutdown despite network upgrades

It marked the first time that the 14.8-km Muzha-Neihu line had to suspend services since the system upgrades carried out by the Canadian contractor Bombardier were completed at the end of August.

According to the MRT management company Taipei Rapid Transit Corp.'s (TRTC) Vice President Chao Hsiung-fei, 34 trains were in operation when the halt in service happened.

Two trains were caught between stations and had to be manually driven into the stations. The entire line resumed normal operations at 10:04 a. m.

An initial investigation showed that the shut down might be caused by a network failure at the Jiannan Station, Chao said, adding that the effect of network optimization will be assessed further by the contractor Bombardier.

He also said Bombardier will propose another long term network optimization plan, in which another network system will be used to replace the existing one. The replacement network system will begin operation as early as January 2010.

Taipei's city government said in September that the system had become more stable after a series of upgrades, including ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) network optimization, which confines problems to a specific section of the line or a single station when a signal fails, instead of grounding the whole system.

The new subway line, which combines the Muzha section that was built by French contractor Matra Co. in the 1990s and the new Neihu section built by Bombardier, has experienced eight major emergency shutdowns since its inauguration on July 4.

The subway management company suspended operations over two weekends in August to enable the contractor to fine tune the system's software and conduct tests.

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