Operator should be marked down for tenders after mass parking meter glitch: experts

Hong Kong authorities should waive relevant fines and introduce a penalty mechanism for the parking meter operator after a four-hour outage disabled about half of the city’s meters, an industry expert and a lawmaker have suggested.

They also called for clearer refund terms for Octopus card users on Wednesday, a day after the government promised to return fees to affected drivers.

A back-end glitch cut off communication with about 11,000 parking meters from 8.20am to 12.15pm on Tuesday. The Transport Department said preliminary investigations found that a system software update conducted in the early hours had triggered the fault, and it promised full refunds for all transactions made during the outage.

Payments continued to be processed during the outage, with some card users charged multiple times as they retried transactions on frozen screens.

Ringo Lee Yiu-pui, honorary life president of the Hong Kong, China Automobile Association, said a failure of this scale was rare, as past breakdowns were usually confined to individual meters displaying an “out of order” sign and covered up for repairs.

He said all parking tickets issued at metered spaces during the four-hour outage should be reviewed and waived.

“These were not cases of drivers refusing to pay, but of being unable to pay. All such tickets should be subject to review and cancelled to give motorists justice,” he said.

Official figures showed that the city had about 20,000 street metered parking spaces, with the old Octopus-only system fully replaced in early 2022 to enable payment by credit cards, Alipay and WeChat Pay.

The new parking meter system is run by Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) in partnership with parking solutions firm Flowbird, which holds two Transport Department contracts worth more than HK$680 million (US$86.7 million) for a duration of 11 years.

Lee questioned how refunds would reach Octopus card users, whose cards would show no deduction record, unlike other e-payment tools. He called on the government to state the terms of the refund more clearly.

“If an Octopus card was charged, would it also be covered by the full refund? Users have no way of knowing whether they were charged, and even monthly statements for auto top-ups do not show the details,” he said.

Legislative Council transport panel chairman Ben Chan Han-pan said the new system had drawn frequent complaints over slow response times, with some meters lagging or requiring buttons to be repeatedly pressed.

“For future software updates, can the response time be faster, and can faults be automatically detected or even fixed remotely?” he said on a radio programme on Wednesday.

“We hope the meters can operate stably, and the supplier should conduct timely reviews.”

He also called for a penalty mechanism, with marks deducted for such incidents reflected on the operator’s score for future tenders.

“If marks are deducted, it will affect the company’s scores in future tenders. This would serve as a reminder for the company to stay alert and keep up its service,” he said.

Secretary for Transport and Logistics Mable Chan said the government was prioritising its handling of the incident, adding that police agreed to suspend enforcement at roadside parking spaces until the system was restored.

She said a detailed inquiry was under way and HKT had been instructed to submit an incident report within 24 hours, thoroughly investigate the glitch, and review its procedures to prevent a recurrence.