Cost of parking on street meters to increase

Street parking meter costs throughout the city are set to double for the city’s light vehicles and motorcycles, with even higher adjustments for larger vehicles. The changes were announced at the Traffic Affairs Consultative Committee meeting held yesterday.
Following the changes, the cost of parking a light vehicle will increase from the current MOP6 (US$0.75) per hour to MOP12, MOP2 per hour to MOP6 for a two-hour slot and MOP1 to MOP3 for a four-hour slot.
Parking fees for motor vehicles, meanwhile, will only change for two-hour slots, from MOP1 per hour to MOP2, whilst five-hour slots will be changed to four hours with the price remaining unchanged.
Regarding heavy vehicles, the parking price will be increased from MOP5 to MOP20 for a two-hour slot and MOP5 to MOP10 for a four-hour slot.
Committee representative Kou Kun Pang told reporters after yesterday’s closed-door meeting that the adjustments are due to pricing having remained unchanged for the past 30 years; the objective of the increase is to stimulate the turnover of vehicles parking on the street.
“[The adjustment] also seeks to shrink the price gap between parking meters and car parks,” said Mr Kou. “The adjustment will reduce the pressure on parking spaces on the street.”
The committee representative revealed that the majority of the committee supported the adjustments during the meeting but that some questioned the relatively limited number of parking spaces for heavy vehicles.
The exact date of the adjustments will be announced when the dispatch is posted on the Official Gazette, remarked Mr Kou, adding that new colours will be utilised to distinguish different hour slots of the parking meters.

Video recognition
Meanwhile, the committee also discussed the implementation of a counting mechanism through the video-surveillance systems of buses to estimate the number of passengers on buses and provide information at bus stops.
“Currently, the implementation [of video recognition for counting passengers] is going through a trial run,” said Mr. Kou. “There are privacy issues involved [in the implementation], so the service will only be possible when it is approved by the law.”
Regarding these issues of privacy the committee representative indicated that co-ordination with the Office for Personal Data Protection is underway.
Kou reported that the number of passengers will exceed 200 million by the end of this year, compared to 180 million in 2014, noting that the supply of extra information about the number of passengers per bus will increase convenience for passengers waiting at the bus stops.