Taipei to seek maximum NT$100,000 penalty over YouBike chaos

Taipei, Oct. 2 (CNA) The Taipei City government said Thursday it intends to seek NT$100,000 (US$3,090) from the operator of the YouBike public bicycle rental system after a system failure Wednesday evening disrupted services for more than 20,000 users.

The outage began around 6:34 p.m. and affected stations in Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan before services were fully restored after midnight, according to operator YouBike Co.

Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the incident seriously undermined public rights and he had instructed the Department of Transportation to impose the maximum penalty for breach of contractual obligations.

He also demanded a full report and timetable for improvements from the operator.

YouBike said the failure was caused by a Sept. 27 software update that led to abnormal data checks and a surge in server traffic.

The company apologized for the disruption, pledged to optimize its system, and said it will offer compensation to affected users.

In New Taipei, authorities said they would decide separately whether to impose a penalty, but asked the company to treat trips made during the outage as falling within the 30-minute free-use period.