There are about 18 000 metered parking spaces in Hong Kong. The old mechanical parking meters accepting coins had been replaced in 1998 with the electronic ones that accepted disposable smart cards issued by the Transport Department. In 2004, we made a replacement of the electronic parking meters in 2004 into the ones that accept contactless Octopus for paying parking meter fees. To promote Smart Mobility, we had subsequently commenced to install new parking meters in January 2021 to replace all electronic parking meters that only accept contactless Octopus.

The new parking meters have three major functions and features -

1. support payment of parking fees through multiple means including Octopus, contactless credit cards i.e. Visa payWave, MasterCard Contactless and UnionPay QuickPass, Faster Payment System ("FPS"), AlipayHK, WeChat Pay and Union QR;
2. support on-site and remote payment of parking fees through a new mobile application, HKeMeter; and
3. be equipped with sensors to detect whether a parking space is occupied, and provide real-time information to assist motorists in finding vacant parking spaces and thereby reduce the time required by vehicles for locating parking spaces as well as the circulating traffic.