📋 Tender Overview
Following is a question by the Hon Nixie Lam and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Logistics Ms Mable Chan in the Legislative Council today April 16
Question
The Government plans to implement electronic traffic enforcement in June this year Fixed penalty notices for traffic offences eg speeding will be issued by electronic means to substitute serving by traditional post or in person There are views that despite the Governments commitment to enhancing the digitalisation of traffic enforcement processes these processes have not yet fully exploited technology to enhance efficiency and reduce costs On the other hand it is learnt that Shenzhen Municipality has been actively using artificial intelligence AI technology to optimise public service processes in recent years In this connection will the Government inform this Council
1 whether it has assessed how electronic traffic enforcement will enhance administrative efficiency and costeffectiveness if so of the details if not the reasons for that
2 whether it will by drawing reference from the experience of the Futian District of Shenzhen Municipality in adopting AI technology in government services optimise the process of handling traffic offences eg speeding if so of the relevant plan and timetable if not the reasons for that and
3 whether it will consider further digitalising other public service processes and introducing more AI tools to enhance the overall quality of public services
Reply
President
In respect of the questions raised by the Hon Nixie Lam having consulted the Hong Kong Police Force HKPF my reply is as follows
1 The aim of digitalisation of traffic fixed penalty tickets FPTs is in line with the direction of developing Hong Kong into a smart city to increase the overall efficiency of traffic enforcement through the application of technology improving the accuracy and speeding up the turnaround in the process of inputting recording and retrieving information in relation to traffic offences or contraventions committed by offenders
The HKPF plans to implement the electronic FPT regime on June 15 2025 and introduce a new thematic portal and mobile application for electronic traffic enforcement purpose providing vehicle owners and drivers with a convenient platform to verify and view their electronic FPTs on the platform and make payment for penalties via electronic means such as online credit card and Faster Payment System etc offering a more convenient public service
The full implementation of the aforementioned measure will reduce processing time for paperbased FPTs and enhance work efficiency and optimise manpower allocation through more flexible resource deployment for other traffic management duties According to the estimate in the funding application for development of the relevant system in 2021 upon the full commissioning of the electronic FPT regime it is estimated that there will be an annual saving of about 124 million being the staff cost of the supporting clerical staff who are currently responsible for handling paperbased FPTs and inputting prosecution data manually into related systems as well as about 232 million notional savings in manpower though redeployment of staff to other traffic management duties
2 and 3 The HKPF has been collaborating with relevant departments to study the application of technology in assisting traffic enforcement continually optimise traffic enforcement procedures drawing on experiences from the Mainland and overseas jurisdictions The Transport Department TD and the HKPF have been working together to test an Automatic Traffic Enforcement System ATES at two road sections namely Queens Road Central in Central and Hoi Yuen Road in Kwun Tong Based on artificial intelligence video analytics and automatic license plate recognition the ATES analyses the dynamics of vehicles in real time identifies traffic offences and records traffic contraventions and the license plate numbers of the offending vehicles In addition the HKPF is collaborating with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to set up and test the first Smart Traffic Management System in Hong Kong in the Kwun Tong Business Area The system installed closedcircuit television cameras for realtime detection and collection of traffic flow data to analyse the causes of traffic congestion eg occurrence of illegal parking or traffic incidents etc and after computing automatically provides the HKPF with traffic diversion suggestions to facilitate targeted enforcement actions by the HKPF as well as consideration of traffic improvement measures by the TD to alleviate traffic congestion in the district and further enhance the safety of road users
The HKPF and the TD will review the effectiveness of the trials for enhancement including more accurate identification of offences under different circumstances etc as well as consult the Department of Justice on future prosecution options for further study and will map out the way forward taking into account the maturity and reliability of the relevant technology its costeffectiveness and the traffic congestion situation at the scene
