And a trial of "cycle clearways" will begin in South Brisbane and West End "sooner, rather than later", Cr Quirk said.

These are the first four of the 55 recommendations from Brisbane's Parking Taskforce to be adopted by Brisbane City Council.

Cr Quirk said the 55 recommendations made by the taskforce would be adopted "in full".

"It is the first comprehensive review of parking that has been done since 1992 and I want to thank them for their efforts," he told reporters at Spring Hill on Tuesday morning.

"We will now work out a program of roll out of these recommendations."

The 15-minute free parking begins at 7715 metered spaces in Auchenflower, Milton, Petrie Terrace, Kelvin Grove, Spring Hill, West End, South Brisbane, Woolloongabba and throughout Fortitude Valley, Teneriffe and Newstead.

The free 15 minute parking will also apply in the council-owned King George Square car park and the council-owned Wickham Terrace car park, Cr Quirk said.

In total over 8800 metered spaces have free 15-minute parking.

"This will have an impact on around 94 per cent of our meters," he said.

"Importantly it will cover all the surrounding areas of the CBD."

Special express parking bays will be set up to make the free 15-minute parking easier to operate, he said.

"Customers will be able to select a 15-minute free transaction when entering their details at parking meters – it's as simple as that.

"The same rules of one 15-minute free parking transaction per vehicle per day will apply to all 500 parking bays in King George Square and 640 bays in Wickham Terrace," he said.

Shoppers staying for longer than 15 minutes pay for the full length of time, including the 15 minutes, he said.

Tap and Go metered parking will also start from January 1, 2015, Cr Quirk said.

"Council is investing $1.6 million to upgrading its 1,122 electronic parking meters this financial year to improve the customer experience, with new technology due to be switched on by January 1," he said.

"Council is installing contactless card readers that will allow for greater credit card security and Tap N Go payments," he said.

"This will allow customers to use Mastercard Paypass or Visa Paywave technology for parking meter payments, offering increased flexibility and speeding up the transaction process."

Shoppers could insert their credit cards or use the "tap and go" technology, he said.

"Customers will still have the option of inserting their card into the reader for payment but now they can also simply tap their card against the external card reader, which will save time and make the city parking experience more convenient."

Cr Quirk said the information from Council's trial of parking sensors showed that 40 per cent of motorists stayed at metered parks for less than 15 minutes.

The changes letting people with disabilities – or their carers – park in loading zones also begins from January 1, Cr Quirk said.

It extends the time allowed from two minutes to five minutes.

Councillors will spend several weeks working out a plan to introduce the other recommendations over the next 12 months.

"Over the coming weeks, I will announce what our time frame is for implementation for the rest of the recommendations," he said.

Cycle "clearways" will most likely be trialled in South Brisbane and West End, where cycling was already popular, Cr Quirk said.

"We will be having a clearway on one side of the road for the morning peak and on the other side of the road for the afternoon peak period, Cr Quirk said this morning.

"So that means parking can be as normal during the main part of the day," he said.

"And we will be starting that sooner rather than later."

Cr Quirk said opponents were wrong to say that additional revenue would be gathered from the free 15-minute parking, because revenue would be lost for that time.

"In fact, the question you should be asking is how am I going to pay for this?" he said.

Council Opposition on Monday said the lost revenue would be minimal - "$1 or $2 dollars a meter."

Cr Quirk said council staff would begin talks in late January- early February 2015 with schools to bring in parking changes around schools.

He said these changes also involved costs to Council.