26 September 2001

Octopus Reaching Out to Ocean Terminal Carpark in Harbour City

Finally, parking one's car is easier than ever before. The days of waiting in line to pay your parking fee, or frantically looking for a lost ticket, are over.

At a press conference today, Edward Keller Ltd (Edward Keller) and Creative Star Limited (Creative Star) officially announced to team up with Harbour City Management Limited to introduce a fully automated Octopus carpark system at Ocean Terminal Car Park in Tsimshatsui. Octopus' ease of use and speed will shave valuable minutes off every parking exercise. On entry, it is enough to simply "beep" your Octopus card on the reader to gain access to the carpark. Presenting the same card to the Octopus reader in the exit lane will automatically deduct the appropriate fee and swiftly raise the barrier, allowing a speedy exit.

The entry reader will automatically detect and display the remaining value on the card, the entry time as well as how long the driver can park before the Octopus card needs to be topped-up. This information can also be printed on a receipt at the touch of a button. The exit terminal prints an official receipt which can used for declarations and/or record keeping.

For those occasions when the remaining value would be insufficient, the shroff office provides add-value services.

"Speed, convenience and trouble-free operation has been the main aim of the Octopus-carparking exercise all along", explained Mr Egon Heldner, Chief Executive Officer of Edward Keller, "in an ideal situation, one would only need to visit the shroff office for the purpose of adding value to the Octopus card. In all other instances, the customer can go directly to the vehicle and exit the carpark without queuing".

The Carpark operator at Ocean Terminal, by adopting Octopus for hourly carpark payments, will achieve a win-win situation. As people take better care of their Octopus cards, the number of lost tickets will drop. Diminished ticket usage not only saves operating costs and reduces administrative workload, but also has environmental benefits.

"There are already more than 7.7 million Octopus cards circulating in Hong Kong and most car owners already have one," said Mr Rob Noble, Chief Executive Officer of Creative Star. "I'm sure the convenience of simply "beeping" one's Octopus card to enter or leave a car park will be much appreciated, especially by those with the automatic add-value service for re-loading their Octopus cards," he added.

For further information, please contact:

Mr Larry Kwan
Department Manager/ Technology Division
Edward Keller Ltd.
Tel: 2942 1543
Fax: 2894 8319

Ms Joan Ng
Director of Marketing
Creative Star Limited
Tel: (852) 2266 2226
Fax: (852) 2266 2254

This serves to acknowledge the generous support of Mazda Motors (Hong Kong) Ltd in arranging a MX5 for demonstration of using Octopus for parking payment at the press conference.

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