Parking Reform Atlas
Taipei demand-based parking price setting
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Brief summary of this reform
Taipei City sets its parking prices based on demand (although community consultation sometimes leads to compromises on this). Pricing reviews take place every six months. Occupancy of 80% triggers an upward revision, while occupancy below 50% triggers a downward revision. This approach applies to both on-street and off-street city-owned parking.
I don't know which year this approach was adopted but it was already in place in 2009.
Why should you care?
Taipei's price setting approach for the city-owned on-street parking is striking for being an early example of Donald Shoup's recommended demand-based parking price setting approach. I am not sure when Taipei adopted this approach or whether they did so under the influence of Shoup's writings!
Country
Taiwan
Vehicle type
cars
State/province
Key actor type
Local government
Jurisdiction
Taipei City
Primary motivation
orderly parking (usually for wider benefits too)
Agencies involved
Taipei Parking Management Office under the Taipei City Government
Is it a model or a warning?
useful model
Reform type
Main parking category
Main parking paradigm shift
pricing
City-owned (both on-street and off-street)
Towards more responsiveness to context/market
Adaptive Parking thrust
Implementation status
Year adopted
P: Price parking in the right ways and with the right rates for each place and time
implemented
Goals of the reform
Occupancy in the range of 50 to 80% in order to avoid the negative side effects of saturated parking and to avoid overcharging for parking. More broadly, well used but orderly parking is desired.
Impetus (what problem, campaign, opportunity or event prompted action?)
I don't know if this replaced another approach to price setting, when this happened and what prompted the change. I would like to know.
Detailed description of the reform
The Taipei city government conducts a six-monthly review of parking charges and adjusts parking prices according to parking demand. Prices are adjusted upwards if the usage is more than 80%, and downwards, if the usage falls below 50%.
This applies to both on-street and off-street city-owned parking. [Commercial off-street public parking has market prices]
However, after these price reviews the price adjustments are often discretionary, especially for off-street parking. Community input plays a major role in determining the outcomes of price adjustments. Strenuous objections sometimes result on prices not rising. Community sentiment tends to resist price increase for off-street parking rather than on-street parking.
Nevertheless, the evidence-based nature of this policy provides strong evidential support for price adjustments which is helpful when engaging with the stakeholders both within the government and the community. The city government often tries to engage with community leaders to mobilise community support for car park pricing policies.
Results or impacts
I would be interested to learn of any reports on the results of this policy or any evaluation of its success or otherwise.
Sources and acknowledgements
Interview in 2009 by Paul Barter with Mr Chen of the Taipei Parking Management Office
Barter, P.A. (2011) Parking Policy in Asian Cities. Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila. Available in hard copy or on-line via https://www.adb.org/publications/parking-policy-asian-cities.
Taipei Department of Transportation https://english.dot.gov.taipei/Content_List.aspx?n=E930A4B70BD80768
Last updated:
11 Mar 2021