Parking Services

Parking services refer to the industry providing parking facilities and related management services for motor vehicles. This sector encompasses various segments, including car park operations, parking management, and the development of parking infrastructure. It serves as a fundamental pillar of urban static traffic management and a crucial vertical within the automotive aftermarket.

Industry Overview

China's parking service industry is grappling with a severe supply-and-demand mismatch. As of 2024, national motor vehicle ownership surpassed 453 million units, with passenger cars accounting for 366 million units. In contrast, the nationwide shortfall of parking bays exceeded 80 million, with deficit rates in core cities topping 50%. Under the National Smooth Traffic Project assessment benchmarks, parking bay supply in city centres should ideally reach 1.2 times total vehicle ownership. However, the current ratio of urban car ownership to parking bays stands at approximately 1:0.8, dropping to just 1:0.5 in smaller cities—falling well short of international standards.

Compounding the issue is poor bay utilisation. Data indicates that parking bay vacancy rates across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have hit 44.6%, with over 90% of parking bays nationwide recording utilisation rates below 50%. Consequently, motorists struggle to find parking while vast numbers of bays sit empty, making the paradox of "parking woes" alongside "idle bays" a defining industry hallmark. In fact, searching for parking accounts for around 30% of urban driving mileage, wasting fuel and further worsening city traffic congestion.

Smart Parking

Smart parking has emerged as a key growth driver for the sector. It refers to a next-generation model leveraging wireless communications, mobile devices, GPS tracking, GIS mapping, IoT, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence to deliver end-to-end intelligent management across urban parking infrastructure.

A smart parking architecture typically comprises four key layers: the sensing layer captures real-time bay occupancy via geomagnetic sensors and video recognition cameras; the network layer ensures seamless data transmission over 5G and NB-IoT networks; the platform layer processes data storage and analytics via cloud computing; and the application layer delivers management tools and user-facing services for local authorities, operators, and motorists.

As of November 2025, 244 prefecture-level cities and 840 counties (county-level cities) nationwide have rolled out smart on-street parking management, bringing the total number of smart on-street bays to 5.03 million—an 18% year-on-year increase. Throughout the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, public tenders for smart on-street parking reached a cumulative RM571,000,000,000, surging 392% year-on-year. The smart parking market is now valued at close to RM30,000,000,000, unlocking an adjacent industry ecosystem worth over RM1,000,000,000,000.

The rollout of unified, city-wide parking platforms is gaining momentum under an integrated "single network" framework. By November 2025, over 1,000 municipal parking platforms had gone live across China, with more than 60% of prefecture-level cities establishing centralised systems. Major cities including Shanghai, Ningbo, and Guangzhou have already integrated real-time data covering all municipal roads alongside over 80% of off-street car parks.

Operating Models

Parking operations are undergoing a rapid shift from manual management to digital intelligence. Operators broadly fall into two segments: smart parking operators and conventional car park operators. Smart operators harness digital technology to deliver intelligent parking management systems, operational services, and asset monetisation, generating revenue via hardware and software sales, management fees, parking collections, and value-added services.

For on-street parking, over 90% of municipalities now appoint third-party vendors, primarily through service procurement, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) concessions, or operational outsourcing. Service scopes have evolved from basic labour contracting and BOT setups to joint operations, turnkey management, and parking fine recovery. In 2025, joint operating contracts accounted for 36% of all projects, overtaking traditional BOT concessions for the first time.

This commercial evolution is also reshaping parking fee structures. In Jiangxi's Xunwu County, for instance, public amenity car parks adopt tiered rates: the first 30 minutes are free, followed by RM2 for the first hour, and RM1 for each subsequent hour, capped at RM13 per day. Flexible solutions such as dynamic pricing, off-peak monthly passes, and integrated park-and-charge passes continue to gain traction.

Future Outlook

The parking services landscape is being defined by three major trends:

Autonomous driving transforming the parking ecosystem. Autonomous driving capabilities allow vehicles to self-navigate to vacant bays, park with precision, and exit autonomously—relieving motorists of the hassle of hunting for parking and saving 10 to 15 minutes of cruising time. By 2028, the wider automotive services market is projected to exceed RM8,000,000,000,000.

Deeper technological convergence. Merging AI with edge computing will boost real-time system responsiveness, while 5G and V2X infrastructure enable seamless communication between connected vehicles and parking facilities. Fully automated, unmanned management is expanding from isolated pilot sites to end-to-end applications, supported by the nationwide expansion of centralised platform operations.

Accelerated integration of city-wide platforms. Government mandates target full data onboarding for state-owned car parks by 2026, aiming for over 90% data coverage of all municipal parking facilities by 2028. Moving forward, parking platforms will expand beyond basic bay management to incorporate broader "parking + mobility" and "parking + commercial retail" integrations.