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Motorists who leave their cars there will no longer have to store stacks of parking coupons and tear off tabs by the half hour or hour. The latest to have the new system is the neighbourhood centre in Jalan Rumah Tinggi in the Alexandra Hills estate.
The HDB, which runs 290 carparks in neighbourhood and town centres, plans to convert more of them from the coupon system to the electronic one soon.
The Electronic Parking System, which uses CashCard technology and the in-vehicle unit reader, charges by the minute.
The HDB said motorists get a 10-minute grace period and charges are by the minute at the normal parking rate of 50cents per half hour. This is equivalent to 1.67 cents per minute.
Motorists used to the hassle-free, hands-free payment system at many mall carparks are glad that the HDB is moving with the times.
It also means that motorists do not have to worry about being fined for parking beyond the duration of their parking coupons.
Motorists can be fined between $6 and $20 if the value of their coupons is insufficient when checked by parking wardens.
Mr Ho Shu Huang, 27, a postgraduate student who frequents the neighbourhood centres in Clementi and Jurong East Central, likes it that he is paying only for the time his car is left in the carpark rather than in estimated time blocks.
'And I used to have to find a place to throw those tabs away,' he added.
But motorists should not be too quick to chuck out all their parking coupons just yet.
The HDB said that it will not be converting its 1,510 residential carparks.
Converting these carparks would not be cost-effective for the HDB as most users are residents who park for long periods at a time and have season parking coupons.
The estimated cost of installing the system is $150,000 for a carpark with one entry and exit point.
Coupons are still needed for open-air carparks and roadside parking under the charge of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
It would make little sense to have an electronic system for open-air carparks as they are built on temporary land which can be taken up for redevelopment, said a URA spokesman.
It would also be logistically impossible to do the same for roadside parking. In all, URA runs 37,300 carpark lots and about 4,800 motorcycle lots.
The move towards electronic parking systems is also gathering pace at commercial buildings.
In the Orchard Road belt, Royal Plaza on Scotts and Grand Hyatt on Scotts Road are the only holdouts. Both still use a magnetic ticket system which requires motorists to pay in cash.
But even they have plans to change.
Grand Hyatt will have an electronic system by next month, while Royal Plaza said that it was likely to install a new system by the end of the year.
