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At the behest of the Office of General Affairs, electrically powered pedicabs are now delivering mails on NTU campus to save energy and to cut down carbon oxide emissions

If you run across a postman riding on a pollution free "electrically powered pedicab" on campus to deliver mails, do not for a moment think that you are seeing a version of the "Cape No. 8" movie. Actually, this is a new measure adopted by the Office of General Affairs to reduce air and noise pollution on campus. In line with the government's policy to save energy and to cut down carbon oxide emission, the Office of General Affairs negotiated with the Postmaster General and obtained its approval to launch the first "electrically powered postal pedicab" service in Taiwan. This service was commenced on November 20th, 2008.

The test drive and the inauguration ceremony for this pollution free postal pedicab were jointly officiated by Dr. Hong-Ki Hong, Dean of the Office of General Affairs and Mr. Jiang-Zhong Su, manager of Taipei Postmaster's Office. Henceforth, this new pedicab will be seen shuttling around the campus delivering mails. Dean of the Office of General Affairs Dr. Hong points out that, ever since he started to push for electrical cars and uniformed mailman to deliver mails around campus, NTU has embarked upon a close relationship with Taipei's Postmaster General. For environmental protection reasons, he had hoped that the postal vehicles serving NTU campus could be replaced by electrically powered cars. His proposal won the approval from the top echelon management of Taipei Postmaster General and a budget was allocated for their purchase. Later on, however, he was informed by the Postal Office that current traffic regulations did not permit electrical cars to be driven around the city. Therefore, electrical cars could not replace the postal vehicles which were run on petroleum. At present, the Postal Office is pulling a last ditch effort to solve the problem of obtaining a legal license by resorting to the interpretation of traffic laws in court.

Before the legal issues are settled, a temporary solution is to take care of the "rear end" of the problem (delivering mails around campus after the mails have been sorted out) by using electrically powered pedicabs to replace the gas driven cars. It is estimated that these electrical pedicabs will be able to appropriately reduce air and noise pollution on campus (as there are nearly one hundred delivery points on campus. Gas driven cars need to start and accelerate, resulting in air and noise pollution) Also, as the pedicabs run slower than the gas cars, traffic safety on campus is consequently enhanced.

Chinese version