The Taipei City Government launched project of automated guideway transit system in the 1980s caused a conflict with the central government's metro project. This conflict drew the intervention of the US government, who invited American transportation consultants to integrate the two transit systems into one. The Brown Line became the only automated metro line of the Taipei Metro. Although the US government had hoped an American company would be the system provider for the Brown Line, Matra’s VAL256 won the contract. However, the VAL256 experienced fire and tire explosion accidents, leading to conflicts between Matra and the Taipei City Government. Matra withdrew all its technical supports to pressure Taipei to pay the down payment. Nonetheless, Taiwanese technical officials and engineers modified the system with flexible strategies making the Brown Line work smoothly without Matra’s technical support. Later, The Taiwanese technical officials invited Bombardier to provide its CITYFLO system and integrated it with the modified VAL256 into one system, avoiding paying a high price to Matra for the extension of the Brown Line. How the Brown Line became a hybrid metro system shows how technological hybridity can change the power relationship between technologically advanced countries such as France and “catching-up countries” such as Taiwan.
Keywords:
In 1996, the Brown Lineof Taipei Metro opened, Taipei Metro’s first metro line and the first in Taiwan, connecting downtown Taipei City and Taipei City Zoo in the city’s southeast corner. According to the plan of the Department of Rapid Transit Systems, Taipei City Government (DORTS), the Brown Line was scheduled to start its service in 1991, but a five-year-long delay resulted due to a series of technical problems, conflicts, and accidents during the Brown Line’s construction and test period. This metro line was equipped with Matra’s driverless metro system, VAL256, and the VAL systems in Lille and at Chicago O’Hare International Airport were regarded as successful automated guided transit (AGT) systems. However, citizens in Taipei did not have confidence in VAL because of two fire accidents involving VAL256’s trains in 1993, when the DORTS and Matra were testing the system. Furthermore, the accidents caused a longer delay, leading Taipei City Council to pressure the Taipei City Government not to pay the down payment to Matra. In response to Taipei City, Matra was about to withdraw all technical support from Taipei just as the Brown Line opened to the citizens of Taipei. A newly opened metro line seemed destined for imminent closure. Nonetheless, although Matra did withdraw all technical support from Taipei months later, the Brown Line has never been closed as a result of Matra’s action.
