Taipei residents who do not own or rent a parking space have the most difficulty finding a spot near their home, with each person spending an average of 14 minutes before finding a space, a survey by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) shows.
The results of the survey show that 65.3 percent of private car drivers nationwide park in a space they own, while about 11 percent park in leased parking lots.
Among the nation’s five special municipalities, Greater Tainan has the highest parking space ownership rate at 68.8 percent. This was followed by Greater Kaohsiung and Greater Taichung at 67.2 percent and 67.1 percent respectively. New Taipei City (新北市) and Taipei City trailed the three others, having a parking space ownership rate of 55.3 percent and 47.1 percent respectively.
The survey also found that 15.7 percent of private car drivers said they had not purchased or did not rent parking spaces and therefore had to try to find an empty space in their neighborhood.
Of those who neither owned nor rented parking spaces, 38.9 percent said they could find one within five minutes, while 32 percent said that they had to spend between five and 10 minutes searching for a spot.
The average time spent looking for a parking space was 9.4 minutes.
However, when broken down by municipality, 31.6 percent of drivers in Taipei needed to drive around their neighborhood to find a place to park. In contrast, less than 20 percent of drivers had to do so in the other four municipalities.
Meanwhile, drivers in Taipei needed to spend an average of 14 minutes looking for a parking space. The time needed in New Taipei City was 11.5 minutes, 8.4 minutes in Greater Taichung, 8 minutes in Greater Kao-hsiung and 6.1 minutes in Greater Tainan.
The survey examined 12,378 valid questionnaires collected between March and May, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent.
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