[Anchor Lead] Old downtown areas can be a hassle for drivers looking for parking space. They may end up circling the area several times to no avail. One town in Bucheon, Gyeonggido Province has set up a system to share public and residential parking lots in return for employing local residents in related parking jobs. Talk about killing two birds with a stone. Take a look at how it works.
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Kim Do-wan is visiting a town in Bucheon. He activates an app called City Pass and it shows empty parking space reserved for local residents. The service is easy to use and cheap, at only 400 to 800 won for two hours!
[Soundbite] KIM DO-WAN : "Parking is always on my mind when I visit new places. But no need to worry in this case so it's great. I hope more places can be like this."
This app provides drivers a complete view of all available parking slots in the area. Residents have established a town corporation to rent out empty parking space during daytime hours while they earn some income by working as parking inspectors and valets.
[Soundbite] SEO JEONG-SUK(RESIDENT) : "Visitors get affordable parking space, while we earn income and jobs are created. Currently there are 21 employees."
Thanks to the ingenious system, parking lot usage has soared from 37 to 109 percent while parking related scuffles abated. Upbeat with the results, Bucheon City decided to expand this system to 13 locations.
[Soundbite] JANG DEOG-CHEON(BUCHEON MAYOR) : "The system has the effect of acquiring 24,000 parking slots and saving 3.77 trillion won in budget that would otherwise go to building parking space."
Next month, a parking robot will also make its debut. Budding signs of citizen-participatory smart cities are no longer hard to detect in Korean society.
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