Tainan City Government's Smart City Roadside Parking Fee Charging System won the 2020 Smart City Innovative Applications Award hosted by Taipei Computer Association. This smart charging system is the first and the largest in Taiwan. The award ceremony was held on Sep. 2 where Tainan City Mayor Huang Wei-che received the award personally from Vice President William Lai. This shows that Tainan's outstanding performance in promoting smart city infrastructure has gained much recognition.
Mayor Huang Wei-che pointed out that moving towards a smart city is the global trend for city development. Tainan developed the smart parking system mainly because of the city's narrow streets and limited capacity to provide more roadside parking spaces in parking hot spots. Smart technology helps increase parking turnover rate which, in a way of speaking, also increases the number of parking spaces. The amount of vehicle exhaust emitted when the cars are looking for parking spaces can be reduced as well. Furthermore, the system issues digital parking fee slips that can be paid via e-payment methods, and offers a more convenient and efficient way for drivers to find available parking spaces.
Currently, Tainan has 7,500 smart parking spaces, which makes up 62.5% of the city's total 12,000 paid roadside parking spaces (the highest percentage in Taiwan). In the future, Tainan will continue to set up smart parking spaces and eventually reach the goal of making all paid parking spaces in the city smart parking spaces.