The Taoyuan City Department of Environmental Protection (TYDEP) participated in the 2023 Smart 50 Awards event held by Smart Cities Connect under the submission “The Governance of Air Quality In Taoyuan Industrial Parks By IoT Air Quality Platform”. Under intense competition, Taoyuan was selected among the top 50 cities, and will receive the award in Denver, Colorado on May 15.
Director General Chen Shih-Wei of the TYDEP pointed out that Smart Cities Connect has been holding the annual Smart 50 Awards competition since 2018. The award is focused on identifying the top 50 most innovative and influential cities in the world, and each city must demonstrate the uniqueness and transformative nature of its initiatives or governance outcomes, and is open to entries from governments, businesses and organizations around the world. According to the TYDEP, Taoyuan participated in the 2023 Smart 50 Awards event under the submission “The Governance of Air Quality In Taoyuan Industrial Parks By IoT Air Quality Platform” on February 22. The city eventually stood out from the competition of many other cities, which demonstrates that Taoyuan has won international recognition for its smart management of air quality in industrial areas. The event awarded 33 entries from the United States, 7 entries from Canada, 3 entries from Taiwan, 3 entries from Germany, and 1 entry each from Spain, Norway, Japan, and China. The organizers will select the top 3 best cities on the same day. Taiwan has won the highest number of awards among Asian countries, including one entry from the TYDEP, one from the Taoyuan Department of Water Resources, and one from the Environmental Protection Bureau of Taichung City.
The TYDEP pointed out that in the early days, people mainly reported air pollution incidents by phone, and then the Center for Environmental Complaints personnel notified the inspectors by phone to inspect, but the pollution evidence was hard to pin down, and it was not easy to obtain evidence when the inspectors arrived at the site. Therefore, in 2014, Taoyuan started to enhance the efficiency of inspection by means of digitalized dispatch, so that the inspection team near the place where the suspected site of violation could reach the site immediately. In addition, the results of on-site inspection can be transmitted back to the Center for Environmental Complaints immediately through a handheld tablet device. Later on, real-time monitoring was combined with the Center for Environmental Complaints. The Environmental Pollution Monitoring Center was established and conducted real-time monitoring of 9 monitoring stations in Nankan River and Laojie River. Working together with the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), the air monitoring program was launched in 2018.
TYDEP Director General Chen Shih-Wei pointed out that Mayor Chang San-Cheng has taken smart governance as a key focus of his administration. In January of this year (2023), the TYDEP began to introduce AI smoke detection equipment to monitor factories in industrial areas through the learning mode of artificial intelligence, and eight chimneys have been monitored in real-time. When an abnormality is detected in the smoke chimneys, the information can be sent to the monitoring center immediately, after which the monitoring center will dispatch its staff to inspect in a proactive digitalized dispatch approach. Chen also noted that from 2014 to the present day, the TYDEP has introduced different technological devices or software one after another. In January this year (2023), to integrate and strengthen the framework of the Internet of Things (IoT), the Environmental Monitoring Center was positioned as a command center and treating all the inspection devices and systems as different objects (including the inspectors handheld tablet, the positioning system of the digitalized dispatch system,air quality sensors, meteorological instruments, intelligent air quality platform, AI smoke detection system, etc.) to integrate into an IoT Platform, which is used to strengthen the air quality management strategy of the entire industrial area. The TYDEP also entered the competition with this theme and was recognized by the judges with the "Global Smart 50 Award 2023".
The TYDEP pointed out that the air quality sensors are currently monitoring 13 industrial areas and 2 communities, with a total of 1,000 units deployed. When the Environmental Pollution Monitoring Center receives a report from the public, it can send the nearest inspection team to conduct an inspection by using the digital dispatch system. The inspector will use the handheld tablet to check the data of the air sensor and combine the information of the meteorological instruments and the information of the nearby factories while on the road. The Environmental Pollution Monitoring Center will immediately transmit the data of the report to the inspectors tablet to help speed up the determination of the suspected pollution sources. The AI smoke detection equipment will also take pictures of the abnormal smoke flow and transmit them to the monitoring center to facilitate the timely dispatch of staff for inspection, achieving the purpose of smart inspection.
The TYDEP also said that from 2018 to 2022, a total of 301 cases were reported, with an average of 50 cases per year. In the first three months of 2023, the operation of this platform to strengthen inspection have resulted in the discovery of 24 cases of violations. The total amount of fines imposed on violators from 2018 to March 22, 2023 was NT$34.36 million. Therefore, the integrated IOT platform can not only enhance the audit efficiency, offer continuous real-time monitoring and alerts, but also be used for regional pollution incident response and decision-making.