Taipei City Government

Taipei City celebrated the completion of Bade Parking Garage on April 2.
 
With construction taking two years at the cost of NT$ 460 million, the new garage is the replacement of the old Bade Mechanical Parking, a 24-year-old facility. The new garage will help relieve parking pressures for visitors to the adjacent Raohe Street Night Market and the residents of surrounding communities. In addition to parking, the garage provides a community space on the first floor that can be used for public events.
 
During his address at the opening ceremony, Mayor Ko Wen-je noted three principles behind the city’s traffic infrastructure policy—sharing, eco-friendliness, and digitalization, adding that an intelligent management system with license plate recognition is available at the facility. Parking fee can be paid through EasyCard, third-party mobile payment, and ETag (to be available by end of 2018).
 
Currently, drivers are billed for using on-street parking in the city. Ko said that by charging roadside parking, the idea of “user pays” can be fulfilled and most importantly, encourages better management. All the efforts are meant to improve the city’s traffic, he added.
 
The mayor said he had assigned the Parking Management and Development Office to promote parking space sharing and encourage municipal agencies, schools, and private business buildings to open their parking spaces to the public. The idea is similar to the concept of Airbnb, noted the mayor.
 
He commented that by smartening up parking management through the use of IOT to make parking space-sharing more efficient, the need to create more car parks can be greatly reduced—a result that can be seen as an overall improvement for the city.