The "Kaohsiung City Bus Department", which operated for 76 years, went into history starting from New Year's Day in 2014, and kbus CO., LTD., formed through a joint venture and shared stock by the drivers, took over the operations. The privatization plan of the Bus Department reinvested vehicle assets, with the city government still holding a 41% stake, while the company is flexibly operated by the private sector. On September 29, kbus CO., LTD. held its 2013 extraordinary shareholders' meeting at the auditorium of the Kaohsiung City Bus Department, electing a total of 9 directors and 3 supervisors, and convened a board of directors meeting, where the 9 directors jointly elected "Wen-Tai Lai" to serve as the chairman of kbus CO., LTD. Chairman Wen-Tai Lai holds a Ph.D. in Transportation and Communication Management Science from National Cheng Kung University. He previously served as the Director-General of the Kaohsiung City Transportation Bureau and currently teaches as an associate professor in the Department of International Business Administration at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. He has long-term research and understanding of public transportation and passenger transport operations in Kaohsiung City. Electing Chairman Lai to office aims to provide higher quality public transportation services for Greater Kaohsiung and to create a new milestone for kbus CO., LTD. After privatization, kbus CO., LTD. was established through a joint venture and stock subscription between the city government, which invested by valuing its vehicles, and the employees of the Bus Department. The Transportation Bureau also approved 33 routes to be commissioned for operation. To coordinate with the operating routes, the company subsequently leased four depots from the Bus Department, namely Xiaogang Station, Qianzhen Station, Zuonan Station, and Jiachang Station. With a spirit of "inheriting the past and ushering in the future," kbus CO., LTD. hopes to operate more flexibly and efficiently under limited resources. Officially starting operations on New Year's Day in 2014, alongside Kaohsiung City's 7 private passenger transport companies and 132 bus routes, the company aspires to "open up a new horizon" and more effectively provide citizens with a complete, dense, and convenient bus transportation network. In the future, it will further cooperate with the Kaohsiung City Government to plan a grid-based arterial bus service network in the urban area using available resources. kbus CO., LTD. will actively improve the bus culture. In the future, it will cooperate with the Kaohsiung City Government and the Transportation Bureau to provide citizens with safer and more convenient travel services, encouraging citizens and friends to enthusiastically take buses, jointly building a more complete public transportation network for Kaohsiung, and hoping to contribute together to energy conservation, carbon reduction, and saving the Earth for humanity and the planet.
(The content above was translated by AI.)