Named as one of the world’s Top 7 smart cities in the 2018 smart city evaluation, Tainan City held the “Tainan City Global Top 7 Smart City Site Visit Press Conference” on April 23. Tainan City Mayor Li Men-yen welcomed ICF Chair and Co-Founder John G. Jung to the city and shared the city government’s achievements in transforming Tainan into a smart city. Following the theme of “Turning An Ancient Culture Capital Into A Smart City”, Tainan City Government has been actively launching and promoting policies in a number of areas including smart city operations, sustainability, transportation, education, and innovation.During his remarks, Mayor Li mentioned that last year Tainan was selected as one of ICF’s Top 21 cities and now Tainan has entered the Top 7 list. This shows that Tainan’s efforts and dedication in the past years has been recognized. Li further explained a smart city means that the city government can provide the most efficient services to the public with the least labor resources through smart technology and methods.
Mayor Li mentioned the government’s flood report app as an example. Residents can now monitor rainfall amount, river water levels, and even mudslides and river conditions from the comfort of their homes. In the healthcare sector, remote care services, promoted by the Public Health Bureau, has benefited 25,000 residents. In transportation, the Mayor pointed out the Tainan Smart Bus system and the collaboration project with businesses to build smart parking sensor poles. In the future, these sensor poles can be set up at roadside parking spaces for license plate identification purposes. Furthermore, the city government also set up more than 10,000 monitors which are very useful for maintaining public safety, identifying vehicle license plates, and tracking down hit and run culprits.
The site visit, held between April 23 and 24, corresponds to ICF’s annual theme, “Humanizing Data”, which emphasizes on open data and big data processing. Smart technology is already implemented in various areas in Tainan. In city governance, Tainan City employs the OPEN 1999 reporting and dispatching system. Data and information related to incidents reported by the public are displayed on the website, and the data can also be analyzed and used to evaluate city policy effectiveness. To promote smart tourism in Tainan, the city launched Tainan Funcard e-ticket system. Big data collected by the system allows related departments to analyze local consumer groups, understand preferences, and evaluate brand effects. In the disease prevention area, public departments can utilize GIS visualization technologies to lock on to high-risk vector zones. The public can directly report potential vector breeding sites via an app, and smart mosquito traps not only kill mosquitoes, but also upload data related to vector breeding sites to a cloud platform which analyzes the data and provides solutions.
Furthermore, Tainan City passed the Tainan City Low Carbon Self-Government Ordinance and is actively promoting solar power related optoelectronic devices. In the future, the Shalun Green Energy Science City will also become an important hub for domestic green energy industry development. In terms of agriculture development and talent cultivation, the government integrated both virtual and brick and mortar marketing channels, and recruited the assistance of innovative technology and practicing professionals to develop new talents in various areas to help create new local employment and startup opportunities.
The Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) remarked that in order to overcome urban development challenges and improve city government services, public, private, and industry sectors have to leverage city data and work together. RDEC also stressed that “open government” and “smart city” are the trends of the future and the policies Tainan City Government are actively promoting. In recent years, there has been much collaboration within the three sectors; and through backend data analyses, Tainan has produced many successful cases in areas including disaster prevention, disease prevention, transportation, and tourism.