Yangon ended fees for car parking in 2014, but the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) will soon bring them back. YCDC announced a plan to build “smart car parks” around the city that will offer paid parking. The new car parks will coincide with the end of the no-fee policy, which city officials say has been ineffective.

At a press conference, YCDC announced that it is currently evaluating six tender bids to build the smart car parks. “Now, we are analyzing the tenders [from] the companies. One of them will be selected to install the smart car parks,” said YCDC spokesperson U Lin Khaing.

Officials say the new car parks and new policy on paid-parking aim to ease congestion in the city. High vehicle taxes in Myanmar’s pre-democratic era made cars prohibitively expensive for many and thus kept traffic relatively low. But now there are roughly 600,000 vehicles registered in Yangon, and the daytime roadways are usually jammed with cars. The narrower city streets are usually cluttered with parked vehicles, which makes traffic even worse. New private car parks, YCDC believes, will provide people with convenient places to leave their cars and also provide some revenue for the city.