Cape Chikyu (Chikyu Misaki), one of Muroran City most iconic scenic spots in Hokkaido, began charging parking fees at its Cape Chikyu Greenspace Parking on April 1, 2026. However, this is no ordinary paid parking scheme: tourists pay a modest fee, while local residents enjoy completely free access through a cutting-edge digital system — reportedly a Japan-first implementation for a tourist facility parking lot.

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The best part? Zero advance paperwork required. Residents simply tap their My Number Card, driver license, or the new combined My Number Driver License on the card reader at the 24-hour unmanned payment kiosk. The system instantly verifies whether the user lives within Muroran City limits and automatically waives the fee — no pre-registration, no window visits, no hassle.

Preserving the Views for Future Generations

Cape Chikyu has long served as Muroran premier tourist destination, but maintenance costs — restroom cleaning, grass cutting, facility repairs — were entirely covered by public tax funds. To preserve this dramatic clifftop panorama for future generations while enhancing the visitor experience, the city needed a reliable, sustainable revenue stream.

The solution: charge visiting tourists a parking fee (¥500 for standard vehicles) and reinvest the revenue into environmental maintenance and new tourism content. Crucially, the system was designed so that local residents feel no added burden — maintaining both quality and community goodwill.

Japan First Citizen Verification at a Tourist Parking Lot

When designing the system, the city top priority was ensuring residents could continue enjoying Cape Chikyu as effortlessly as before. Conventional resident discount schemes typically require showing ID at a service window or pre-registering online — extra steps that discourage spontaneous visits.

Muroran new 24-hour unmanned payment system sidesteps all of that. The kiosk directly reads the IC chip in Japan My Number Card (or driver license) and performs real-time residency verification on the spot — believed to be the first such implementation at a Japanese tourist facility parking lot. It is a remarkably elegant piece of civic technology: tourists contribute fairly to maintenance, while locals breeze through as they always have.

Striking the balance between tourism sustainability and residents quality of life is a challenge facing destinations across Japan. Muroran Cape Chikyu experiment — asking visitors for a fair contribution while using smart technology to shield locals from any inconvenience — may well point the way forward for other scenic spots around the country.