Parking Plan | Taiyuan City Unveils a New Strategy to Alleviate the “Parking Shortage” Problem

To advance comprehensive governance of civilized traffic, alleviate the imbalance between parking supply and demand, enhance the living environment, and actively strive to become a National Civilized City, Taiyuan City has recently formulated and issued a work plan. The plan calls for intensifying efforts in the planning, construction, and management of parking facilities, with the goal of establishing an open and efficient parking supply system that prioritizes on-site parking, supplements it with public parking, and further supports it through on-street parking. This will help create a favorable framework characterized by sound urban parking‑facility planning, standardized construction, and effective management.

In recent years, Taiyuan City has implemented a range of measures to steadily expand its parking infrastructure. At present, the six urban districts have approximately 1.264 million registered motor vehicles, with about 840,000 parking spaces approved for new developments and roughly 140,000 public parking spaces, resulting in a parking‑to‑vehicle ratio of around 0.8:1. However, this falls short of the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development’s recommended ratio of 1.1–1.3:1.
To alleviate parking difficulties, Taiyuan City has further refined its parking‑facility planning and conducted a special survey of existing parking infrastructure. The city is committed to the scientific, rational, and efficient use of spatial resources, ensuring an adequate overall supply, optimizing site allocation, enforcing stringent standards, and strengthening land‑use guarantees. In line with actual parking demand, it is leveraging the integrated “Five‑Plan‑in‑One” information platform to complete, to a high standard, the preparation and approval of the “Taiyuan City Special Parking‑Facility Plan.” The city is vigorously advancing parking‑facility construction by establishing a leading group and a dedicated office. Following a phased approach—planning a batch, reserving a batch, scheduling a batch, implementing a batch, and completing a batch—it is continuously updating a three‑year implementation plan to ensure the annual rollout of parking‑facility projects. Administrative approval procedures have been streamlined, and a variety of measures are being adopted to make full use of diverse spatial resources, encouraging the development of additional parking capacity through underutilized spaces, new construction, and over‑provisioning. Diversified investment and construction models are being introduced to accelerate the expansion of parking infrastructure. Comprehensive remediation efforts are underway to improve urban traffic conditions, with targeted interventions in key areas and on priority road segments, creating distinctive demonstration effects. Management and operation of parking facilities are being strengthened: dedicated parking lots are encouraged to offer time‑shared parking; the leasing and sale of parking spaces in residential communities are being standardized; on‑street parking spaces are being more rigorously managed; and the level of refined traffic management is being enhanced. The city is also actively promoting the application of cutting‑edge technologies in parking infrastructure, advancing the development of charging‑station networks, building parking‑guidance systems, and driving the intelligent, digital transformation of parking facilities. Furthermore, it is fostering the adoption of innovative parking technologies and the construction of eco‑friendly parking facilities.