The Taipei City Parking Management Office, in collaboration with Chunghwa Telecom, plans to launch on Saturday a new parking query system that can help drivers locate the three parking lots closest to their vehicle with a simple text message, an official said yesterday.
To provide the service, the city government and Chunghwa Telecom have set up a mobile phone positioning system that identifies the location of a cellphone user's vehicle and links it with computerized information on nearby parking lots, Chien Pai-chang (簡百昶) of the Parking Management Office said.
Drivers who are Chunghwa Telecom subscribers can send a text message to 55145 to get parking information, Chien said.
Once the text message is sent, Chunghwa Telecom will determine the phone's location based on the strength of the cellphone’s signal received by its base stations and then transmit that information to the Parking Management Office's computer system.
The office’s computer will then search for parking lots in the area and the number of empty spaces left and automatically send back the information by text to the driver.
The process will take around two minutes and cost NT$2.3 per request, Chien said.
The city government will also continue providing its instant parking query system by telephone, which allows drivers to obtain information on available public parking by making a voice call, Chien said.
Under that system, Chunghwa Telecom mobile subscribers can dial 55145 to make voice queries on parking fees and open parking spaces.
Some users had complained that the voice service was not convenient enough and that cellphone voice inquiries were expensive, Chien said, which prompted the office to expand the query system's functions and convenience.
Non-Chunghwa Telecom subscribers can call (02) 2726-9600 ext. 2 to make similar queries, Chien said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS