平凡生活記事

Bureau touts shortened travel time

tout  [taʊt] (noun)

- a person who buys tickets for concerts, sports events, etc. and then sells them to other people at higher price (賣高價票的人)

toll  [tol] (noun)

- money that you pay to use a particular road or bridge (通行費)

ex: motoway tolls (=freeway tolls)

      toll fee collectors

deputy  [ˋdɛpjətɪ] (noun)

- a person who is the next most important person below a business manager, a head of a school, a political leader, etc. and who does the person's job when he or she is away

ex: I am acting as deputy till the manager returns.

conserve  [kənˋsɝv] (verb)

- to use as little of sth as possible so that it lasts a long time

ex: Help to conserve energy by insulting your home. (對房屋隔熱處理可以幫助節約能源）

mitigate  [ˋmɪtə͵get] (verb)

- to make sth less harmful, serious, etc. (same as alleviate)

ex: actions to mitigate poverty.

carbon  [ˋkɑrbən] (noun)

- a chemical element. Carbon is found in all living things, existing in a pure state as diamond, graphite. 碳

ex: carbon fiber

dioxide  [daɪˋɑksaɪd] (noun)

- a substance formed by combining two atoms of oxygen and one atom of another chemical element (二氧化物)

ex: carbon dioxide (CO^₂)

booth  [buθ] (noun)

- a small confined place where you can do sth privately, for example make a telephone call, or vote (不受干擾的空間)

ex: a phone booth

tollbooth [ˋtol͵buθ] (noun)

- a small building by the side of a road where you pay to drive on a road, go over a bridge, etc.

staging [ˋstedʒɪŋ] (noun)

- a temporary platform used for standing or working on (臨時工作台)

ex: staging worker

seeming  [ˋsimɪŋ] (adj)

- appearing to be sth that may not be true (表面上)

ex: She handled the matter with seeming indifference.

lane  [len] (noun)

- a section of a wide road, that is marked by painted white lines, to keep lines of traffic separate 車道

ex: to change lanes 變換車道

off-peak (adj)

- happening or used at a time that is less popular or busy, and therefore cheaper

ex: off-peak teavel

surpass [sɚˋpæs] (verb)

- to do or be better than sb/sth

ex: Her cooking was always good, but this time she had surpassed herself.

applicable  [ˋæplɪkəb!] (adj)

- that can be said to be true in the case of sb/sth (合適)

ex: Much of the form was not applicable to me. (不適用於我) 

prepaid [priˋped] (adj)

- paid for in advance

ex: A prepaid envelop is enclosed. (內附郵資已付信封一個)

lay off [le] (v)

- to stop employing sb because ther is not enough work for them to do

ps: lay-off (noun) - an act of making people unemployed ...

in relation to sth

- in connection with sth, relating with sth

- compared with sth

ex: She checked the map to see where Taiwan is in relation to China.

drop (verb)

- 

ex: The percentage dropped to 30% this year...

The temperature dropped to 25 degree today.

protest (verb) 

distance-based toll fee collection policy

Article

National Freeway Bureau statistics showed that the travel time between Taipei and Kaohsiung has been shortened by an average of 10 minutes after the nation launched the “pay as you go” freeway toll fee collection system last year.

National Freeway Bureau Deputy Director-General Wu Mu-fu (吳木富) said that the project has also helped conserve energy and mitigate the increase of carbon dioxide levels, saving about NT$2.4 billion (US$76.8 million).

However, the bureau spent NT$4 billion launching the project by removing nearly all the toll booths on the freeways and improving road surfaces in the sections from which the booths were removed.

Nearly 950 former freeway toll collectors were laid off in the process, with some still staging protests to demand fair compensation from the government.

In response to the seemingly limited impact of the new policy, Wu said that the bureau calculated the travel time saved by comparing the travel time under the current system with when cars needed to drive through the toll collection lanes.

“If you compare the travel time now with that of driving through the lanes in which drivers had to pay cash or present prepaid tickets to toll fee collectors, the travel time saved is about 20 to 30 minutes,” Wu said, adding that 10 minutes was the average time people could save when they travel between Taipei and Kaohsiung.

Wu also said that the duration of the travel time could be reduced by more than 20 minutes if drivers traveled during off-peak hours.

Meanwhile, the bureau found that about 41 percent of weekday traffic on freeways is people traveling less than 20km per day.

The percentage dropped to 35.4 percent on weekends and to 33.8 percent on long weekends or the Lunar New Year holiday.

The overall traffic volume on the freeways has increased by 3 percent after the bureau began enforcing the distance-based toll fee collection policy, with revenue topping NT$21.2 billion, which is about NT$800 million less than previously collected through toll booths, the bureau said.

The amount surpassed the estimated revenue of NT$18 billion to NT$19 billion.

Under the current system, each vehicle may travel 20km per day toll-free during a “regular” day or non-holiday day.

During holidays, the toll-free distance is not applicable and vehicles are charged in relation to the distance they travel.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2015/04/17/2003616144