Ministry Of Transportation And Communication Research Articles

The Preservation of Tracing Paper: A case Study of TRA Archives

Taiwan is located within a subtropical region where the preservation of tracing paper is challenging, given its susceptibility to changes in humidity. Although the National Archives Administration (NAA) currently provides a controlled environment for the repositories of the National Archive, this archive has sustained damage and deterioration due to a legacy of compromised storage and inherent fragility of its contents. Of particular interest are the collective holdings of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA), the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC). Historically, these holdings were originally known as ‘The Railway Department of the Traffic Bureau, under the General Governor of Taiwan’, during Japanese colonial governance. This specific collection dates from 1895 to 1997 and includes over 10,000 engineering drawings. Previously, the NAA had implemented linings to both repair damage and aid in the preservation of the physical archives. However, this study compares this approach with an alternative humidification method using Gore-Tex® to relax and flatten these drawings on tracing paper. The focus of this paper is to evaluate dimensional change as a result of these treatments and to make recommendations in regards to their respective suitability for addressing the condition of the TRA collection.

The Study on the Ballast Water Management of Mailiao Exclusive Industrial Harbor in Taiwan

In 2004, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships Ballast Water and Sediments (BWM Convention). Taiwan’s government has been in line with the BWM Convention’s obligations by passing several administrative orders and adopted the 3 + 1 Port State Control (PSC) procedure. International trade ports in Taiwan include commercial ports and exclusive industrial harbors. The industrial harbor in Taiwan is unique in the world, so the 3 + 1 PSC procedure cannot be directly applied to the industrial harbor. Based on document analysis, this study discusses the similarities and differences between commercial ports and industrial harbors. The regulations and systems for ballast water management in Taiwan and how they can be applied to industrial harbors are also discussed. Judging from the results of this study of regulations, commercial ports and industrial harbors differ in applicable laws, competent authorities, and construction and management units. However, in operational practice, industrial harbors should be regarded as a commercial port whose use is restricted. Therefore, this study posits that industrial harbors should be classified as commercial ports in Taiwan’s ballast water management system. Classifying industrial harbors as falling outside commercial ports may cause management difficulties and may even cause trouble for international shipping. It is suggested that the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) first discusses with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) and the Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) to confirm whether industrial harbors are inside or outside the category of commercial ports, and then decide on a management system and suitable laws and regulations for integrating industrial harbors with commercial ports and international affairs.

Blue collar laborers’ travel pattern recognition: Machine learning classifier approach

This paper proposes a pattern recognition model to develop clusters of homogenous activities for blue-collar workers in the State of Qatar. The activity-based data from the travel diary of 1051 blue-collar workers collected by the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MoTC) in Qatar was used for analysis. A pattern recognition model is applied to a revealed preference (RP) survey obtained from the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MoTC) in Qatar for the travel diary for blue-collar workers. Raw data preprocessing and outliers detection and filtering algorithms were applied at the first stage of the analysis, and consequently, an activity-based travel matrix was developed for each household. The research methodology undertaken in this paper comprises a combination of different machine learning techniques, predominantly by applying clustering and classification methods. A bagged Clustering algorithm was employed to identify the number of clusters, then the C-Means algorithm and the Pamk algorithm were implemented to validate the results. Meanwhile, the interdependencies between the resulted clusters and the socio-demographic attributes for the households were examined using crosstabulation analysis. The study results show significant diversity amongst the clusters in terms of trip purpose, modal split, destination choice, and occupation. Furthermore, whilst the Bagged Clusters and Pamk Clusters techniques on the three attributes yielded similar results, the Cmeans Clusters differed significantly in a number of the clusters. Applying such pattern recognition models on big and complex activity datasets could assist transport planners to understand the travel needs of segments of the population well and formulating better-informed strategies.

The effects of road safety education on the occurrence of motorcycle violations and accidents for novice riders: An analysis of population-based data

The prevalence of motorcycle riding among novice riders in most Southeast Asia countries presents an alarming rate of traffic violations and fatal accidents. Since 2013, Taiwan's government has gradually required a road safety class (RSC) for the rider's licensing process. The RSC consisted of watching videotapes of motorcycle-involved crashes followed by lectures on safety measures. Our study tried to see whether a compulsory RSC could lower the likelihood and frequency of road accidents and traffic violations among novice riders. To avoid self-selection bias, we selected 480,114 novice riders aged 18–20 years, licensed one year before starting the trial period and one year after full implementation of RSC. Using the 2012–2018 data from the Taiwan Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC), we applied the logistic model to evaluate RSC effects on the risk of violations and accidents. Then, we used the negative binomial regression to model their frequency in response to RSC exposure. Following the novice drivers 1–3 years after licensing, our results showed that the RSC has a short-term effect in lowering their traffic violations' likelihood by 12%∼17% and their frequency by 11%; however, the RSC effects only last two years in reducing the counts of motorcycle-involved offenses and accidents. The RSC reduction effect was lower for the tendency of accidents than the violations, probably because committing traffic violations was self-determined; in contrast, the collision occurrence was more or less related to the riders' own or other road users' carelessness. The RSC could be more effective if a certification test for road safety education were required or if a penalty is imposed on distracted learners during the training.

Navigation Risk estimation using a modified Bayesian Network modeling-a case study in Taiwan

Frequency of the shipping accidents in Taiwan has been increasing since 2013. Navigation Risk estimation using a modified Bayesian Network (BN) making use of the shipping accident data between 2014 and 2019 is conducted. Parameters based on Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) marine accident database are treated as the parent and child nodes, namely, Ship Age, Flag, Ship Type, Gross Tonnage, Accident Type, Accident Severity, Sea State and Location. The information of such knobs is compiled and forms the basis for prior and conditional probability calculations. Considering the consistency of the condition probability entries for child nodes lacking data, a mapping process contemplating the states from parent nodes is proposed. Rationality of the BN model is validated by the sensitivity analysis of the Navigation Risk outcomes and Accident Frequency and Accident Severity comparisons with the MOTC figures. General Cargoes, Bulk Carriers and Containers under 10,000 GT tend to have higher risk of accidents whereas Containers and General Cargoes over 15,000 GT are prone to encounter mishaps. Grounding, Collision and Fire/Explosion should deserve attention worldwide. The proposed BN demonstrates the feature of proactive safety analysis based on scenario analysis carrying out Navigation Risk predictions considering vessel characteristics and environmental conditions.

Ground anchors corrosion - the beginning of the end

Ground anchor corrosion is a common problem for anchored slopes in Taiwan. It is partly due to the humid climate condition and abundant groundwater in the slope and partly due to poor corrosion protection of anchor design and construction. In 2010, an anchored slope at Taiwan National Freeway No. 3 failed suddenly after 13 years of service. It buried 3 cars and killed 4 people. It caught the public’s attention and initiated the island-wide program on over hauling the anchors slopes in Taiwan. Since this event, the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC) of Taiwan government had launched an extensive inspection and maintenance program for the existing anchored slopes along the freeways, highways, and railways. Totally, more than 100,000 ground anchors had been inspected. This paper will evaluate the findings from this inspection program. It includes (1) the status quo of the anchors regarding the corrosion condition and the residual load that remained on the existing anchors; (2) remedial measures taken to sustain the serviceability of existing corroding anchors; (3) measures taken to enhance the long-term durability of new anchors without changing the strand material and the practice of anchor construction commonly used by the local contractors.

Public service motivation and job performance in public utilities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to examine the predictive power of each dimension of public service motivation (PSM) on job performance (JP) in a Taiwan sample. Design/methodology/approach – The present study adopted a cross-sectional approach using a large-scale questionnaire survey in Taiwan (N=2,239). Participants from six utility sectors in two infrastructure-relevant ministries (Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) and Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA)), with heterogeneous sectors, were recruited, including representatives of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA), Chunghwa Post (CHP), Taiwan Power Company (TPC), CPC Corporation, Taiwan (CPC), Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC), and Taiwan Water Supply Corporation (TWSC). The sample consisted of 2,239 public employees from six public utilities. Findings – Although the results suggest that the PSM observed in western society also exists in the Taiwanese public utilities context, the self-sacrifice (SS) and the compassion (COM) ...

Taking an Expended View of Customer to Construct Hotel Rating System

An attention on leisure consciousness and related activities by Taiwan people also signifies an enhanced standard on service quality and demand satisfaction of tourism and leisure industry, in which a perception of customer satisfaction perceived by consumers in terms of appraisal dimension and measurement was gradually replaced by intangible accommodation experience or personalized service by service personnel from tangible hardware facilities and equipments in the past. Tourism Bureau of Republic of China has recently announced the execution of “hotel rating system” which suspended for nearly twenty, an announcement of this policy has caused considerable echoes and support to scholars from the academy and the industry and consumers with regard to hotel business, the hotel industry in Taiwan will only be able to get connected with international tourism market so as to inspire the global awareness of tourism market in Taiwan through the implementation of “hotel rating system”. The study follows the assessment standards of “star hotel rating system” promoted and implemented by Tourism Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) in 2010, to conduct analysis in terms of SERVQUAL’s five dimensions proposed by Parasuraman, Zeithamel and Berry (1985). According to the research results, the hotel rating system in Taiwan is badly in need of an attention to the establishment and assessment of indicators in terms of “service assurance” and “service empathy” dimensions, the results also indicated that tourists make judgment based on “tangible hardware” along with “intangible service” provided by the hotels, are important determinants to enable a differentiation.

Restructuring Taiwan's port state control inspection authority

Abstract To improve marine transportation safety, countries around the world have established authorities dedicated to implementing port state control (PSC). Appropriate measures have also been taken to ensure that these dedicated organizations are given enough power to carry out their duties independently and credibly as a safety mechanism. In contrast, Taiwan's existing PSC inspections are administrated by commercial port authorities, causing impartiality. The disadvantages of such a system become evident when a ship is found to have critical faults, because commercial port authorities have difficulty deciding whether the ship should be detained. Under such circumstances, the impartiality and objectivity of these port authorities are often questioned. Therefore, the restructuring of port authorities to improve dedication and objectivity is a critical issue in the implementation of PSC. This research uses three stages of methodology: (1) the in-depth expert interviews aim to gather information; (2) the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) calculates the weight of guidelines and evaluates feasible solutions. Port state control officers (PSCOs), maritime transport operators, and the staffs of competent authorities are used as the respondents of this expert questionnaire; and (3) the close-loop questionnaire survey evaluates and confirms the results of the above two research processes. The objective of this research is to create the best solution for introducing an independent authority dedicated to managing Taiwan's PSC tasks. Based on the evaluation of this research study, the optimal solution is to establish an independent government agency under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC). An alternative optimal solution is to form a PSC committee under MOTC, which would serve as a temporary measure if legislation for establishing an independent government agency is delayed. These solutions would improve the PSC in Taiwan and strengthen marine transportation safety.

Understanding the Design of Mobile Social Networking

Understanding the Design of Mobile Social Networking