The 26th ITS World Congress 2019, one of the largest global events in smart transportation technologies, was recently held in Singapore, and Taichung City became the most prolific Taiwanese municipality in terms of the number of essays published in the congress. Transportation Bureau Director General Yeh Chao-fu and his team published 4 essays including "Coordinated Signal Control Project for National Highway No.1-Provincial Highway No. 74 Interchange and Ground Level Roads", "Smart Intersection Safety Maintenance Plan", "Bus Stop Illegal Activity Law Enforcement Plan", and "Taichung Smart Bus Network Plan". The presentation of Taichung's achievements in smart transportation has received international recognition.
ITS World Congress is one of the global events in smart transportation technologies, attracting nearly 10,000 participants and more than 300 manufacturers from the government, information communication industry, and transport industry in over 100 countries every year. This year, participants invited include international system integration service providers, automakers, car electronics manufacturers, electronic map application developers, 5G communication service providers, as well as smart transportation authorities of various countries and major international manufacturers. The congress consists of activities such as seminars, forums, exhibitions, and technical visits.
Transportation Bureau Director General Yeh Chao-fu commented that the bureau has showcased Taichung's achievements in smart transportation at this year's congress. These include the application of smart dynamic signaling system to improve traffic congestion near highway interchanges; creation of smart intersection safety measures to minimize traffic accidents; illegal activity law enforcement at the bus stop using integrated magnetic detection and image analysis technology; the first User-Friendly Taichung Bus reservation app allows visually impaired passengers to book for a bus.
According to Director-General Yeh, the city government has also obtained plenty of transportation technology-related knowledge at this year's ITS World Congress. The bureau will borrow from the experience of Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) in Singapore and various countries to launch Taichung's MaaS platform that is capable of offering door to door transportation service. There will be no need to transfer between transport tools, and traffic will be improved through smart technology and the analysis of transport-related big data.
In addition, the Transportation Bureau visited the Jurong East Bus Interchange and Woodlands Bus Interchange in the country, serving as interchanges between Singapore's MRT and bus system, as well as important transport nodes for passengers traveling between Singapore and Malaysia. Director-General Yeh said that although the bus interchanges have adopted a simple design, information such as transfer route, bus stop, and bus locations are presented in a clear, easy to understand manner. Furthermore, Singapore has unveiled the yield to bus campaign, where cars must yield to buses carrying passengers in order to minimize accidents caused by cars and buses fighting over right of way. This is a policy that the city government will borrow and learn from.