TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) second term nears an end, he reviewed Taipei’s achievements in smart governance and his vision for the city’s future development in an exclusive interview with Taiwan News.
Ko said smart governance may seem straightforward because, on the surface, people only see the result of complex processes being streamlined. “Digitalization is not a one-time event. It is an overhaul,” he said.
He used Taipei’s “119 High-performance Dispatch System” as an example: in the event of a fire, during the five minutes it takes for an ambulance to arrive on the scene, first responders are able to review the burning building’s data, such as its structural information as provided by the Building Administration Office. They can also find out whether there are immobile or special needs individuals in the building thanks to records provided by the Department of Social Welfare.
According to Ko, it is things like these that allowed Taipei to be ranked as the fourth-smartest city in the world by the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland. Out of 118 cities around the world, only Singapore, Zurich, and Oslo outranked Taipei.
When asked whether he was satisfied with Taipei's digital response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Ko said, “There is never ‘the best’ but always ‘better.’” Nonetheless, he added, Taipei did benefit from digitalization, as technology helped with transmission path analysis and contact tracing.
During Ko’s term as mayor, the Taipei City Government established the Smart City Project Management Office (TPMO), which works with the private sector on experimental, innovative solutions to the city’s various issues. He said the TPMO was established based on the idea that “the entire city is a living laboratory.”
The International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland ranks Taipei as the fourth-smartest city in the world. (International Institute for Management Development screenshot)
The office uses both a top-down and a bottom-up approach, which have government departments compiling issues to resolve and businesses familiar with the market pitching project proposals. If the proposals seem feasible, the government then uses its budget to “buy” the project and have it implemented.
Ko said the model was developed when he realized a reason why official policies were often badly-received was because the government’s “imagination” of what citizens needed did not match reality. He said the government should cater to the public’s needs because citizens would always have a better idea of what those needs are.
He used an online food-ordering system proposed by the Taipei First Girls High School as an example of something the government never would have thought of.
In the past, students would have to go through a process of queuing up to receive their lunch, ordering food, paying, and waiting for their orders, which could take a long time. Now, students could order and pay for their lunch during recess in the morning and simply go pick up their food during lunchtime.
“If I were designing a smart campus, I would never have thought that (students) would need a food-ordering system,” said Ko. “The government is not more knowledgeable about the market than the industry is.”
Ko Wen-je says digitalization aided Taipei in combating the COVID-19 pandemic by aiding transmission route analysis. (Taipei City Government image)
In terms of Taipei’s energy and environmental developments, he said the Taipei City Council has passed the “2050 Net-zero Emission Self-government Ordinance,” which will be implemented by January 1, 2023. According to him, the city government has three focuses: residential and commercial buildings, traffic, and waste disposal.
For buildings, which make up 70% of all carbon dioxide emissions, the city government will gradually begin to impose green building standards. The process will start with public buildings and interiors, such as requiring the use of energy-saving lights, proper ventilation, and efficient air conditioning systems.
Traffic-wise, Ko said since two years ago, all of the city’s new bus purchases have been electric vehicles, and by the end of 2022, Taipei will have 400 electric buses. Additionally, Taipei is also promoting the “4Us” of shared transportation — YouBike, U-motor, U-EV, and U-parking.
Regarding waste disposal, Ko revealed that the amount of leftover food every day in Taipei amounts to 170 tons. Initially, there was the idea of building a biomass power plant to address the issue, but Ko began a campaign to reduce food waste at schools instead, saying, “When I eat, I don’t have leftovers. Why (should we need a biomass power plant)?”
“To achieve 2050 net-zero goals, not only does the government have to roll out policies, but, more importantly, citizens’ lifestyles must change. This makes it a social movement.”
Ko Wen-je's education-oriented development solution re-purposes campuses to meet communities' needs. (Taipei City Government image)
Ko utilized education and transit-oriented solutions in promoting Taipei’s sustainable development. While they were not the only solutions, Ko called them the “most important.”
He said as the number of students decreases due to low birth rates, about 75% of Taipei’s school campuses must be rebuilt within the next 15 years. As the campuses are rebuilt, the city will be able to address communities’ needs with re-purposed spaces by transforming them into nurseries, nursing homes, and community centers.
Meanwhile, transit-oriented solutions can resolve issues such as Neihu’s traffic problem. As the district’s population and businesses have grown dramatically in the past years, the roads there, with their unchanged sizes, cannot accommodate the hundreds of thousands of commuters.
“So, when we designed the Taipei East Gateway project in Nangang, we built six social housing locations. We hope that if you work here, you will live here,” Ko said. “That shortens the everyday commute to and from work and reduces energy consumption.”
Ko believes that after eight years of mayorship, his legacy will be one of “insistence,” which is something that allowed him to digitize 99.7% of the government’s paperwork. “At first, many people resisted. So, the most difficult aspect of reform is insistence… We can’t expect to change our country within a day, but more importantly, we can’t expect that the country will change on its own if we do nothing.”
