The Taichung City Environmental Protection Bureau's pioneering “Application of AI Recognition System To Detect Highly Polluting Scooters” was selected as one of the “2022 Smart 50 Awards” winners. This annual award recognizes innovative smart city projects, with winners from cities worldwide. Representing Taichung City made Taichung the only winning city from Taiwan, bringing honor to the country.

Environmental Protection Bureau Director Hong-Yi Chen noted that since Mayor Shiu-Yen Lu took office, the city has continuously improved Taichung's air quality through various control strategies and technology applications. The Environmental Protection Bureau has integrated hardware and software systems for multiple applications, leveraging Taiwan's strong capabilities in electronic technology and software development. Since 2020, they have implemented innovative technological law enforcement, combining AI automatic smoke detection technology with automatic license plate recognition systems to control smoking vehicles and simultaneously strengthen the management of motorcycles that haven't completed their annual emission inspections.

The Environmental Protection Bureau reported that last year, out of 1,193,452 motorcycles required for inspection in Taichung, 986,962 completed the inspection, achieving an annual inspection rate of 82.70% - ranking first among the six special municipalities. The combined number of reported and actively investigated smoking vehicles was 1,538. Among these, 510 vehicles were notified for smoke inspection due to confirmed pollution concerns, 312 actually underwent inspection, and 124 were subsequently scrapped, indicating that approximately 40% of old motorcycles under smoke emission control were retired.

Furthermore, technological law enforcement and related control measures, combined with subsidy policies for replacing old motorcycles, eliminated 60,931 Phase 1-4 old motorcycles last year. The carbon reduction achieved equals planting 1.12 million trees or establishing 8.5 Taichung Metropolitan Parks.

The Environmental Protection Bureau emphasizes that air pollution improvement starts with everyone. By combining the efforts of government agencies, motorcycle inspection stations, and citizens, they ensure all motorcycles complete annual emission inspections. Through motorcycle emission inspection stations providing frontline maintenance assistance to vehicle owners and establishing correct motorcycle inspection and maintenance concepts, everyone can contribute to improving air quality.