This aerial photo taken on Jan 8, 2023, shows a shuttle bus from Hong Kong entering Zhuhai through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in south China. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

The Hong Kong government plans to issue electronic vehicle and driver’s licenses within this year and enhance transportation-related online services for drivers, the Transport Department announced on Friday.

At a news conference on Friday afternoon, the department said electronic vehicle licenses will be launched by midyear. As license information will be handled via electronic systems, motorists will no longer need to replace expired paper licenses. Physical copies of the vehicle licenses will still be issued, but they will no longer display the expiration date, the department added.

The new mobile app will also allow drivers to check their vehicle licenses’ expiration date, driving-offense points, and important messages from the department

Electronic driver’s licenses will also be available in late 2024 or early 2025. Having identical functions as physical ones, the electronic licenses will have an encrypted QR code that can be read only by police devices for information verification.

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Driver’s-license holders should authenticate their identity via “iAM Smart” — a one-stop digital service platform developed by the Hong Kong government — to access their electronic driver’s licenses in a new mobile app that will be launched later.

The new mobile app will also allow drivers to check their vehicle licenses’ expiration date, driving-offense points, and important messages from the department.

The department is also developing an online platform for car-plate bidding to save buyers’ time.

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The department also announced at the news conference that it will extend the trial of the queue ticketing system for driver’s-licensing related counter services to three more licensing offices across the city, providing 980 same-day queue tickets every working day. Users can also check the queue number remotely via the QR codes on the ticket. Currently, the system is implemented only in the Kowloon licensing office.

Xu Zhujingqiu contributed to this story.