• Location:臺灣
• Date: 2023/08/29
• Update Date:2023/08/29
• Clicks:38

In response to recent accidents involving drivers not giving way to pedestrians and the public’s demand for a safe environment for pedestrians, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) has formulated an inter-ministerial short-, medium- and long-term “Pedestrian traffic safety guidelines,” which makes apparent the Government’s determination to implement policies to improve pedestrians’ traffic safety, and clearly reveals the goal of reducing the number of fatalities in road traffic accidents by 30% before 2030, thus moving towards the Vision Zero in the long term. 

To improve pedestrians’ traffic safety, it is necessary to start from the macro perspective of urban overall transportation system planning, and then integrating the planning of the public road system, public transportation, and pedestrian environment. The “Pedestrian traffic safety guidelines” targets three major improvement for for pedestrians’ traffic safety: “Promoting Basic Law on Road Traffic Safety,” “Deploying Complete Public Transportation System,” and “Implementing Pedestrian Traffic Safety Improvements.” These projects are divided into short, medium, and long term and are promoted in order.

The short-term projects may be fulfilled within half a year, and the most important one is the completion of the legislation of the Basic Law for Road Traffic Safety, which is scheduled to be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for debate in September. The Yuan-level “Central Road Traffic Safety Report Meeting” will be established and convened by the President of the Executive Yuan. A 4-year long (2024-2027) TWD40 billion “Sustainable Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Project” to improve pedestrians’ traffic engineering will be implemented, and in addition, the “Inventory of Priority Improvement Project for Pedestrian Traffic Safety Facilities” will include 600 locations at intersections (sections) with the highest risk of accidents and in areas where pedestrians congregate (e.g., public transportation stations, school surroundings, etc.). The latter project will process the improvement of traffice safety facilities with progress updates once every six months.

The mid-term project will be completed within one year. The highlights of the project will be the enactment of the “Pedestrian Traffic Safety Facilities Regulation,” which will set out the key pedestrian facilities, performance indicators (KPIs) and the management assessment mechanism, and set out the accountability mechanism to the local governments. In addition, according to the “Basic Law for Road Traffic Safety,” the central government will formulate the “National Road Traffic Safety Outline Plan” every four years, the Ministries will formulate the “Annual Road Traffic Safety Promotion Plan” every year, and the counties (municipalities) will formulate the “Annual Road Traffic Safety Implementation Plan” every year. The Motor Vehicles Office will “strengthen the management mechanism of human-vehicle supervision,” including the reinstatement of short-term license renewal for those with serious violations and requirement to participate in road safety lectures, expansion of motorcycle driving training and road safety driving training, and the implementation of driver training class teaching and management. Additionally, the “Highway Public Transportation Subsidy” will be expanded by increasing the subsidy funding and revising the subsidy system to prioritize the construction of the public transportation environment in central, east, south Taiwan, and the outlying islands.

The long-term project, which will be completed within four years, will implement and promote the “Road Traffic Safety Audit Mechanism,” which requires road authorities to conduct regular safety audits, proactively identify potential hazards at high-risk locations, and carry out preventive improvement actions, as well as establish a road safety management and audit system for planning, design, construction, and operation. Plus, by setting up the “Improvement of Automobile and Motorcycle Driving Test System, it will implement road training and tests for motorcycles, increase the number of routes and items for automobile road tests in order to enhance the safe driving ability of drivers, and improve the driving training evaluation system to enhance the quality of driving training. By setting up the “Full Provision of Public Transportation Coverage,” it will continue to promote and expand the highway public transportation program, renew the Executive Yuan’s monthly commuter pass TPASS, and increase public transportation capacity by 5% in 2025. To promote the passenger vehicle electrification, TWD64.3 billion will be invested from 2024 to 2030, and all urban buses nationwide will be fully electrified by 2030 to improve service quality. Moreover, the Government will promote the use of shared transport (such as bicycles and electric assisted bicycles) as a last-mile service to connect different public transportation modes.

The Government hopes to actively promote various efforts in the areas of legislation, education, engineering, supervision and management, law enforcement and public transportation upgrading, in order to turn around and improve the safety traffic for the pedestrians. With the hope of providing the public with a smooth and safe pedestrians’ environment, as well as a high quality of service and improving the highway public transportation network, traffic accidents will move transportation safety towards “Vision Zero.”