A smart parking service that lets users check real-time space availability, pre-pay parking fees and receive automatic discounts — all from a smartphone — is set to launch in full in Seocho-gu.
The Seoul district of Seocho-gu, led by District Mayor Jeon Seong-su, said it has built a Smart Parking Information Integration System connecting approximately 2,500 parking spaces across 25 public lots under a single platform.
The district plans to begin a pilot run in August, with full service to follow later that month after system stabilization and on-site inspections.
As of June, Seocho-gu had the highest vehicle registration rate among Seoul's autonomous districts at 1.03 vehicles per household, and demand for public parking has been consistently rising. Until now, however, 12 different control systems from separate manufacturers operated independently across the district's public lots, creating inconsistent management practices and limiting the speed of responses to resident complaints.
In response, the district spent roughly a year developing and field-testing a project to consolidate all 25 lots' control systems into a single platform, beginning last year.
The most visible change is what the district calls "exit without waiting." Users who pre-pay their parking fees via QR code on their smartphones can leave through the exit gate without stopping for a separate payment. Integration with the Seoul Metropolitan Government's "Baro Green Payment" service and Kakao is also underway, with plans to expand the no-stop exit service further.
Vehicles eligible for fee reductions — including those registered to people with disabilities, national merit recipients and drivers of compact cars — will receive automatic discounts without submitting supporting documents, through a link to the Ministry of Interior and Safety's non-face-to-face eligibility verification service.
Once full service begins in August, residents eligible for discounts — including families with multiple children and Seocho-gu residents aged 65 and older — will be able to complete advance authentication through the Seocho-gu parking portal, eliminating the need to present a multi-child card or resident registration card each visit. They will receive automatic fee reductions and no-stop exits, significantly improving convenience.
Time spent searching for an open space will also drop sharply. The integrated system feeds real-time vacancy data to the Seocho-gu parking portal, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's parking information guidance system and TMAP, allowing users to check availability before they arrive and reducing unnecessary vehicle movement. A web-based discount service — enabling local shops and clinics to offer parking discounts to visiting customers — will also be strengthened, contributing to the vitality of the local economy.
The benefits extend beyond resident convenience. With both directly operated and contracted public lots now connected on a single platform, parking fee revenue will flow through a unified channel, improving management transparency. Key administrative functions — including unpaid fee inquiries, payment processing and collection management, as well as vehicle odd-even restrictions, full-lot controls and season-pass management — can now be handled centrally in real time. A remote management system providing live monitoring of entry and exit activity, payment data and equipment status has also been established, enabling faster responses when technical failures occur.
Particularly notable is that once the integrated system is in operation, usage data for each lot — including turnover rates and peak congestion periods — will accumulate automatically, providing an administrative foundation for future decisions on expanding public parking, improving operations and shaping parking policy.
The district said it expects the integrated system to mark the start of a full digital transformation in public parking management, with significant gains in administrative efficiency to follow.
"Through this Smart Parking Information Integration System, I expect residents to find it much more convenient to use public parking lots — from checking available spaces to receiving discounts, making payments and exiting," District Mayor Jeon said. "Going forward, we will continue to expand smart parking services that citizens can feel in their daily lives by leveraging data and digital technology, and we will keep working to create a more convenient transportation environment."
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