The other night we were about to head out to dinner in downtown Taipei when I did my usual ‘phone/keys/wallet’ check.

I was missing my phone so went looking for it, I only ever leave it in a select few locations around the house so it’s never too difficult to locate.

Sitting on the ironing board, I picked it up and then had that all too familiar thought cross my mind:

‘Hmm, I haven’t charged this thing in a while… wonder how much battery it has left.’

Flicking my N8 out of standby, my heart sunk as the battery meter appeared with just one bar of power left. With no time to spare to charge it (I was annoyed with myself as I’d been home all day), I grabbed the electric charger out of storage and put it in my girlfriend’s bag.

‘Seriously? Where are you going to charge it?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll find somewhere…’

As luck would have it, the table we sat down on had an electrical outlet on the wall so after plugging my phone in for a half or so I was good to go.

This isn’t something I do regularly as I’m usually good with keeping it charged (I take random photos for OzSoapbox all the time so need a charged camera ready to go no matter where I am), but when I do need to do it, don’t really think twice about where I’m plugging my phone into.

Lucky for me I haven’t yet used one of Taipei’s MRT station electric sockets…

Last year a Taiwanese man, surnamed Wang, decided to charge his mobile phone from one of the electrical sockets at Tamsui MRT station.

Busted by a patrolling police officer, Wang was handed over to the Shilin District Prosecutors Office who went on to charge Wang with ‘electricity larceny’.

In his defense, Wang claimed that ‘he didn’t know it’s an illegal practice to charge his mobile phone at an MRT’s power socket, and therefore “unknowingly” violated the law.‘

Refuting Wang’s claims however, prosecutors argued that ‘all the power sockets at MRT stations bear two Chinese characters denoting that use of the sockets is forbidden‘.

That argument proved succesful in court and Wang was indicted a few days ago.

It’s unclear just how long Wang charged his mobile phone for, but regardless the maximum penalty he’s now facing is five years in prison.

And he’s not the first to be charged for using a MRT electrical socket either…

Back in 2006 a woman, surnamed Lee, was busted charging her mobile phone for eight minutes at Taipei Main MRT station.

Lee was also indicted and wound up copping a $21,000 TWD ($711 USD) fine, which equates to $88 USD a minute in electricity use.

Personally if my phone was dead I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about using an electrical outlet at a MRT station to charge my phone, although unless I’d prepared beforehand, there’s probably next to zero chance I’d have the opportunity to given I never carry a charger around.

That said, I was curious as to what the sockets looked like at MRT stations so off I went to check them out.

Turns out electrical sockets are in ready abundance at MRT stations and I found at least 8 of them within 2 minutes of entering the paid area of a MRT station. There was at least ten of them in this one corridor alone:

For some unknown reason 110V and 240V sockets are conveniently supplied and the sockets themselves are spaced out around every 10 meters:

Meanwhile I don’t know what the Chinese text says on the socket covers, but the English simply states ‘Not for public use unless approved by TRTC’.

It certainly doesn’t mention anything about being indicted and facing fines and five year jail sentences…

Now of course the sign alone would probably be enough to deter me, but with no penalty listed if I was desperate and ignorant that it was actually illegal to use the sockets, I’d probably take my chances for a few minutes. As I suspect Wang, Lee and anybody else who’s used the sockets to quickly charge their phones has.

Using the MRT sockets is pretty straightforward, you just lift the flap and off you go:

The corridor I shot the photos in was pretty empty, but in the dense crowds of Taipei Main Station during peak hour, I imagine you’d have a pretty good shot at getting away with it (not that I’m encouraging it or anything…).

One would think if there was any real concern over the electricity “stolen” that TRTC would y’know, better secure the sockets with lockable covers or something. I mean outside of cleaners do you really need both 110V and 240V sockets every 10 meters inside a station?

Turns out the reason strict deterrents are in place is because it’s a little bit more than just the stolen electricity they’re worried about.

Taipei Rapid Transit Corp. said that as the MRT system is powered by electricity, it must to prohibit passengers from using power sockets at MRT stations lest any short circuit should occur to affect normal operation of MRT trains.

I don’t know what standard procedure is but one would hope that the trains were hooked up to independent power lines. Evidently that might not be the case.

Dunno about you but did TRTC just give away the weakest point in the MRT system? I mean, not that I am, but lets say if I was a MRT terrorist – how hard would it be to knock up a small electric device that triggered a short-circuit and just quickly plug it in long enough to trip the circuits and bring the entire station to a halt?

Of course the abundance of CCTV would probably do you in, but TRTC have you covered with them insisting that passengers wear face masks when they are sick. Whack on a facemask while you attempt to take down the MRT system and you’d look like just another sick person catching a train.

Oh and just to complicate the matter and confuse people, the government does actually provide electric recharge sockets for public use at ‘high-speed railway stations, and some Taiwan Railway stations such as Banqiao, Songshan, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Yilan, and Taitung‘.

Honestly, with the hundreds of thousands of people going through Taipei’s MRT stations every day, nobody thought to better secure the electric sockets if they didn’t want people using them?

Piss poor effort TRTC!


Update 23rd February 2012 – Well that was a quick response:

TRTC general manager Tan Gwa-guang (譚國光) said the company would set up charging equipment around the stations’ wireless Internet zones to offer the free service to mobile phone users.

It said the sockets would first be set up at major MRT stations, such as Zhongxiao Fuxing, Taipei Main Station and Taipei City Hall.

The service is expected to go live next month (March) and there’s currently no projected roll out for other stations.

Oh and amusingly,

The TRTC does not intend to limit the time for the battery-charging service, but will advise passengers to only use the service in the case of an emergency.

…is playing on your smartphone an emergency? Cause you just know that wasting their battery playing games is why 99.9% of people are going to wind up using them.


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