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Following is a question by the Hon Lau Kong-wah and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Transport, Mr Kevin Ho, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question : It is reported that during the preceding Easter holidays, quite a number of people going to the Mainland through the Lok Ma Chau Boundary Crossing were required to wait at Lok Ma Chau Public Transport Interchange for several hours before they could get on shuttle buses to travel to the Huanggang checkpoint. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether:

(a) there is any difference between the operating frequency of such shuttle bus service on weekdays and that on holidays; if so, the details of it;

(b) it knows the reasons for the travellers' having to wait for several hours during the above-mentioned holiday period before they could get on the shuttle buses; and of the improvement measures that the Administration will adopt to prevent the recurrence of such a situation; and

(c) consideration will be given to designating shuttle bus stations in the vicinity of the Sheung Shui Station of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, to provide shuttle bus service between Sheung Shui and the Huanggang checkpoint, so as to meet the demand of huge crowds of travellers for the Mainland; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply :

Madam President,

(a) The Lok Ma Chau - Huanggang Shuttle Bus Service is a scheduled, cross boundary public coach service for passengers travelling between the Lok Ma Chau Public Transport Interchange on the Hong Kong side, and the Huanggang Check Point on the Shenzhen side. The approved service frequency is every 12-15 minutes on weekdays but frequencies are improved at peak periods to meet demand. During peak hours on weekdays, the service frequency can go up to five-minute intervals depending on demand. During holidays, it can be increased to three-minute intervals.

(b) The Shuttle Bus Service ran at three-minute intervals for the peak hours during the last Easter and Ching Ming holidays. On those days, all available immigration and customs facilities were fully manned. The design daily handling capacity of the Immigration Hall of 25,000 was exceeded by the daily patronage of 44,000 on the peak day of the last Easter holidays. This compares to the average daily patronage of 12,000 for the Shuttle Bus Service during weekends and holidays. As the number of boundary crossers far exceeded the handling capacity of the facilities, some waiting was inevitable. The number of passengers waiting at the Lok Ma Chau Public Transport Interchange had at one time built up to 1,500, resulting in a maximum waiting period of two hours.

Throughput of the Lok Ma Chau Control Point is constrained by existing crossing facilities at the Control Point and manpower resources. Plans are in hand to expand the Lok Ma Chau Immigration Hall by 2002. This will increase the daily handling capacity from 25,000 to 45,000 passengers. Over the longer term, the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line of the KCR East Line is scheduled for completion in 2004. Both of these measures will help relieve pressure at the Control Point. In addition, works have already started to construct 10 additional kiosks at the Lok Ma Chau Control Point, for completion by the end of 1999. This will increase the design handling capacity from 19,000 to 32,000 vehicles a day. The departments concerned will review how efficiency can be improved following the completion of the kiosks. Meanwhile, the Government will monitor the patronage pattern of the Shuttle Bus Service and keep under review crowd control and traffic management measures at Lok Ma Chau, especially during major holidays. Arrangements will also be made during peak periods to disseminate through the media information on the crowd build-up and the estimated waiting time at the Control Point.

c) The peak period congestion experienced by passengers of the Shuttle Bus Service is the result of the capacity of the immigration and customs hall. The long-term solution is to divert as many passengers as possible to mass carriers, such as the rail, and to expand cross-boundary facilities. Just introducing additional shuttle bus stations or new services would bring in more traffic to the Control Point, thus aggravating congestion there, and would not improve the capacity of the boundary crossing facilities.

End/Wednesday, April 21, 1999

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