Taipei City Government

The Taipei City Government achieved a new milestone in its efforts to transform into a smart city, rated as the top such city in Taiwan. Today (April 16), Mayor Ko Wen-je received the “GO SMART Demonstration Awards” in the city government conference, and three awards including “Smart Environmental Protection”, “Smart Safety”, and “Smart Government” of the 2019 Smart City Innovation Application Awards” granted to the Department of Information Technology (DOIT), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Department of Education, Police Department, Fire Department, and Public Works Department.

Mayor Ko said that creating a smart city has always been the target of his government. He started “from the inside to the outside, and from the public to the private” as a strategy, encouraged industries to become innovative, and successfully carried out over 160 Proof of Concept (PoC) projects. The city can be a laboratory for smart technology to test out different solutions.

Taipei city’s smart city development concept shall be extended to all cities in Taiwan and exported to other countries. It established GO SMART by collaborating with the five major city governments, industries, academic institutions, research institutes, and organizations to develop the most ideal platform for cities in the world to connect and cooperate in order to promote the development of the smart city.

The 2019 Smart City Innovation Application Awards “Smart Environmental Protection” includes an award program developed cooperatively by DOIT and DEP known as “iTrash Smart City Garbage& Recycling Integration System Trail Plan”. Through cloud management and an IoT (Internet of Things) network, information can be delivered instantly to staff in charge of trash removal. Systematic management can reduce operating costs and increase efficiency. The system is also connected to smart payment systems such as EasyCard to calculate the refund cash of garbage and recycled garbage. For the convenience of users, the refund amount will be directly credited to the EasyCard so that members of the public will no longer have to manage their schedule around garbage trucks.

Moreover, the Police Department, in order to reduce the work of the police officers at the base rank and act in accordance to the new policy of “Work Smart”, introduced a new “Electronic attendance System”, “Electronic Patrol System”, “Temporary Inspection System”, “Traffic Violation Reporting System”, and others. These innovative systems work together as a “Taipei Police WORK SMART Platform” to improve the working environment for the police force. It significantly improved police and government efficiency, as well as service quality for citizens. All system data is collected by the greater platform for big data analysis in order to improve the effectiveness in criminal investigation and tackle against new ways of criminal activities using the latest technologies. The recent success has helped the project win the 2019 Smart City Innovation Application Awards for “Smart Safety”.

For the 2019 Smart City Innovation Application Awards in “Smart Government”, the “Road & Pipeline Smart improvement - Disaster prevention Media 119 Emergency Center“ is operated by the Taipei City Road & Pipeline Information Center (RPIC), connecting the government with civil unit resources across different industries to manage road and pipeline problem 24 hours a day, nonstop. The addition of smart technology, app mobile service, 3D graphical information platform, cloud service, IoT network, AI automation, and big data analysis allows efficient management and report on the instant progress on road improvement work. Furthermore, through the use of cloud media services and related apps including instant road improvement progress media inquiries and “Media 119” reporting service, an instant video stream and GPS locator allows an accurate evaluation to be made according to the place of disasters as they occur and situations of injuries or casualties. The channel offers the RPIC and 119 Rescue Command Center thorough information on the situation so that proper rescue actions can be taken and escalated if necessary with high efficiency.

Other than the awards above, Taipei also won the first “GO SMART Demonstration Awards” with the Smart School Fence PoC Verification Project developed by Umbo Computer Vision. Commissioner Lu Hsin-ke of DOIT explained that the verification system works through a learning AI and now being applied to Taipei Municipal Kuangfu Elementary School and Taipei Bo Ai Elementary School. The new tech combines the flourishing development of AI with image identification to improve security in the school area. Proper warnings made through AI learning have increased to 90%. The technology has also been exported to schools in Amsterdam in the Netherlands during inter-city communication.

Commissioner Lu also pointed out that Taipei City Government has established Taipei Smart City Project Management Office (TPMO) as a bridge of communication between the government and industry. With the help of public and private sectors introducing new innovative resources, Taipei continues to open up new areas for innovative technology testing so that new tech can be refined and upgraded. In the future, the government will continue to act as an open platform based on the current fundamentals and push forward smart city management and transformation. With serving citizens as our major mission, we manage to direct resources inside out to further develop the “Smart Taipei, One City” concept by offering higher quality service with efficiency to our citizens.