Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Starts Intelligent Life of Digital Cars economy from Parking

        The national highway toll system has been implemented for many years, and people have been accustomed to paying fees without parking or rolling down the window on the highway which solves the trouble of preparing change and wasting paper and return tickets and saves a lot of time, but in fact, similar troubles also occur in the parking lots. "Cover Story" of this issue invites Senior Vice President of Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection, Xu Yaoxun, to share with you how to use eTag Go's services to bring the wave of wisdom into the parking lot!

Save time and energy. Thoughts for the intelligent life
As a pioneer of intelligent transportation in Taiwan, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection has 7 million ETC customers. The high popularity of eTag has become the "digital identity card" of vehicles, which also makes the development of digital car economy more possible. According to Senior Vice President, Xu Yaoxun, "Parking" is a rigid demand for consumers. Taiwan's parking market has broken 10 billion yuan annually, attracting many payment platform operators to carve up the market. Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection has also extended the service of intelligent traffic to intelligent parking since 2017. "

At present, there are two kinds of intelligent parking services on the market: “eTag induction system” and “license plate recognition system”. They can enter the parking lot directly without rolling down the window and taking the replacement currency. However, Senior Vice President, Xu Yaoxun, points out that "license plate identification" is easily affected by weather, driving perspective, light and other factors. Besides, the car owners still need to confirm the license plate number and pay fees at the information center before their departure. In other words, "License Plate Recognition" technology only solves the problem of vehicle entry, the problem of departure still exists. But the services provided by Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection uses RFID induction technology, as long as the vehicle eTag induction is normal, the recognition success rate can reach more than 99%, and parking fees can be paid through the binding joint credit card, there is no need to pay at the payment machine, which saves time and really let the driver enjoy unimpeded entrance and exit of the parking lot. "

        Technology alone is not enough. Senior Vice Presidents knows that "service" is the key to creating differentiation. Therefore, unlike other new parking operators that they use the app to send the notifications, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection uses messages to communicate with users so that customers can get the most complete, correct and concise information. "When the car enters the parking lot, we will send a message to the owner, reminding him of the entrance time and the charging method, so as to facilitate the owner to calculate the parking time; when leaving the parking lot, we will also inform the owner of the exit time and the charging amount through the message. For the owner, it is equivalent to a guarantee, so that he can grasp the vehicle's whereabouts and reduce the risk of being driven. "

Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection also tries not to disturb the people when applying for services. The owner can pay the parking fee as long as he applies for eTag intelligent parking service through the original "ETC APP" and chooses the joint bank credit card he wants to use. "It is worth mentioning that the five major banks cooperated with ETC, including Far Eastern International Bank, E.SUN BANK, Taishin International Bank, CITIC and Cathay Bank, credit card coverage is wide, which can reduce the difficulty of people's binding services." Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun added.

At present, eTag Go's application for intelligent parking service has broken 130,000, with a cumulative number of transactions exceeding 30 million. There are about 230 cooperative stations with monthly rent and temporary parking. Among them, there are many well-known cooperatives such as Liyang Parking Lot, as well as community parking lots such as Taipei Minsheng Community, Taoyuan Zhongyuan Primary School. It also cooperates with Taichung City Flower Expo to provide eTag Go intelligent parking service in the park.

        Double the efficiency of invisible management
In addition to serving consumers, eTag Go Smart Parking also provides more convenient and efficient management services for parking operators. However, Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun didn’t mince his words, "For a well-located parking lot, even if the service experience is not good, there are still many people to park, so most of the operators are not keen on innovating customer parking payment experience, resulting in a longer negotiation period in the initial promotion period and the result will be worse than expected”. Fortunately, with the progress of science and technology, people's demand for convenience has been increasing, and the market sentiment has changed." When the government regards eTag and license plate recognition as standard specifications, the operators must import these automation facilities in line with the demand, and the conditions of digital payment are also naturally equipped, so we can promote equipment and services."

Of course, the greater the market acceptance of smart parking, the more competitors there will be, and even some parking operators will invest in R&D on their own, which is another challenge that Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection is faced with. In this respect, Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun abandoned the previous technology-oriented thinking and turned to service as the main demand. "Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection has seven maintenance stations and 24-hour customer service, which other businesses haven’t since it undertakes ETC business. When car owners encounter problems, they can call customer service directly, and the door can be opened remotely after we confirm the identity, thus reducing the burden of human resources in the parking lot. At present, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection cooperates mainly with medium and large parking operators. In addition to continuing to increase temporary parking services, it also strives to reduce the personnel costs of monthly parking operators through monthly rent collection services.

Despite the numerous competitors, for Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun, "cash" is the biggest enemy. "Taiwan's cash payment is too convenient. At present, digital payment accounts for only 25% of the total payment. There is still a lot of room for breakthroughs in the future. The person who can change the public’s habit of using cash is the winner! As a result, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection continues to deepen its services to the operators and consumers. For consumers, the "5-day Free parking for New Members" campaign held in April-May this year has been highly praised. In the future, we also plan to cooperate with HAPPY GO so that parking can collect points. “On the operator side, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection hopes to expand its service from parking lots to business districts, where people can enjoy parking concessions if they consume in the nearby merchants to drive the economy of the whole business districts”. Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun predicted.

        Data Integration Shapes the Future
The connection of the various car economy brings a new look to our lives. The support of technology is indispensable. "Taking AI as an example, the most important application in license plate recognition will help to improve the existing technology and equipment, and then reduce the operating costs of the operators," Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun pointed out. "

However, compared with AI, Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun said frankly that gain of Big Data is the ultimate goal of this wave of wisdom. "In fact, the application of traffic Big Data has already appeared in our lives, and the most common one is the prediction of highway travel time. However, the real Big Data is that clues must be found from the data and be predictive. Since parking belongs to static data, and the cumulative amount is still not enough, it can only be called statistical data. Nevertheless, once parking data intersects with other data, a prototype of Big Data-like can still emerge. "For example, which age group or region is more willing to apply for parking services can help us further narrow the target group and invest more resources in potential customers and make commercial promotion. Therefore, the next step of Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection will focus on the integration of different data. "Take HAPPY GO Accumulative Point Project as an example, in addition to providing more services to consumers, we also hope to draw the outline of customers by linking information, and find the next feasible service application to build a more complete life circle for consumers. "

As Senior Vice President Xu Yaoxun said, the business of parking is "old market, new blue sea". The intangible data power is related to the future value of enterprises. Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection, starting from the car economy, has gradually implemented the ideal of a paperless, cash-free society and building a more and more intelligent life. "Our goal is to build a world of parking roaming. For the public, they will only feel that parking becomes smoother, as for the connection of subsequent information, just give it to us!" if you want to experience how technology can change life? Start with intelligent parking!