Real-time sensors monitor trees in storm

• By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter, with CNA

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The Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit Bureau yesterday said that it has used 211 inclinometers to monitor tree stability in green tunnels of the city’s light-rail system during Typhoon Champi.

Kaohsiung’s light rail is known for two green tunnels: Totoro Tunnel, which is between Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts Station and Neiwei Arts Center Station and lined with Madagascar almond trees, and Hulk Tunnel, which runs from Heart of Love River Station to the Shu-Te Home-Economics and Commercial High School Station, featuring tall rain trees.

Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) yesterday inspected the fixation work for the light-rail green channels.

A train runs near the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in an undated photograph.

Photo: Wang Jung-hsiang, Taipei Times

He said that the city government has collaborated with the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering on introducing technology to monitor the light rail section along Dashun Road.

Tree inclinometers were set up along the green channels to monitor tree stability around the clock, Lin said, helping enhance the city’s disaster response capabilities during the typhoon as any abnormality can be reported in real-time.

The bureau said it has set up typhoon-resistant fixation work for all 453 Madagascar almond trees and rain trees along the light rail.

Different supports such as steel tubes, steel cables, bamboo poles or ropes were applied, depending on the tree species and operating conditions, it said, adding that it had trimmed 42 trees along the light rail following the previous typhoon.

An additional 11 tree inclinometers were set up in the green tunnels prior to Typhoon Champi, the bureau said.

Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp general manager Joseph Wang (王亞洲) said that Kaohsiung’s light rail system had a daily ridership of about 40,000 passengers from January to this month.

While the annual ridership reached 13.33 million passengers last year, it is projected to surpass 15 million passengers this year, up by 66 percent compared with the originally estimated 9 million passengers, he said.