Opening remarks by Deputy Commissioner for Transport at press briefing on preparation work of Government for commissioning of HZMB
******************************************************************************************
And now I recap the major points about domestic transport services. There are various transport modes to and from Hong Kong Port including franchised buses, green minibuses, coaches and taxis. People can interchange to the shuttle bus in order to go to the Zhuhai and Macao control points.
We will introduce three new bus routes and one green minibus route. Passengers using MTR can interchange to route no. B5 at Sunny Bay Station or route B6 at Tung Chung Station. Route B4 links up the Airport and the Hong Kong Port to facilitate air passengers and also those going to the Asia World Expo. There will also be one green minibus route from Tung Chung to Hong Kong Port. It will go via the catering area in the airport island.
Apart from these new routes, people can also use nine direct "A" routes to the Hong Kong Port. Eight of them operated by Citybus and Long Win bus companies, they are from the main districts in Hong Kong. And there is also a route A35 which operates from Mui Wo help passengers from South Lantau going to this control point.
Apart from franchised buses, especially people travel in groups such as tours or organisations on contract hire services can also use coaches to come to this control point.
Of course, passengers can use all three types of taxis, i.e. urban, NT and Lantau to this control point. Whilst we encourage people to use public transport services to this control point, those who would like to drive, we will provide parking services in this Hong Kong Port. There are 673 private car parking spaces and 14 parking spaces for motorcycle. About half of these parking spaces can be reserved on a pre-booking basis and we encourage motorists to pre-book before they drive their cars to this port. TD's "Hong Kong eMobility" website and mobile app will provide real time parking vacancy information about these car parks and people can check in this website.
I would have to recap the main points about cross-boundary public transport and traffic arrangements. The shuttle bus is the key transport mode linking the three ports, Hong Kong and Zhuhai and HK and Macao. It operates 24 hours daily and passengers can buy tickets in the departure hall or through its website in advance.
The adult fare of the routes is HK$65 during day time and HK$70 during night time. Half fare concessions are offered to children, disabled and elderly passengers.
Apart from shuttle buses, passengers can also use cross-boundary coach services which provide direct point-to-point services from Hong Kong destinations to destinations in Mainland and also in Macao.
Those who would like personalised services may also take cross-boundary hire cars. It is worth mentioning that because of the provision of about 3 000 private car parking spaces at the Macao Port. There is a HZMB Macao Port Park-and-Ride Scheme.
Hong Kong private car owners can apply to drive their private cars to the car parks through the bridge. No vehicle licence by the Macao authorities are required, but there will be an identification label, which when you apply for a closed road permit from Transport Department, we will handle the same application. With the label, you have to do three things before you drive there. First, book a timeslot from the online platform, then, make sure that you have valid insurances of Macao and the Mainland also apart from Hong Kong. And also update the Mainland vehicle insurance information in the Mainland's online platform.
For goods vehicles, for the sum 12 000 Hong Kong goods vehicles, they now can use the Macao bridge on day one, without any application. And for goods vehicles between Hong Kong and Macao, the two authorities are still discussing about the details. We expect that these services would be available when the loading facilities at the Macao Port is available.
I recap the key points in English. We know there are concerns about traffic, and to strengthen traffic management and monitoring, we will install additional mobile variable message signs on top of those fixed ones. We will also complete the installation of traffic detectors for automatic traffic incident detection which facilitate more efficient traffic monitoring and hence faster information dissemination to the public. We also add tow trucks along the expressway for quicker recovery. We will also disseminate information through TD's mobile app.
As the Secretary has mentioned, we have also taken measures to manage traffic flows during this time and we will closely review the situations.
In order to improve the communications among departments and the contractors, we also have taken drills in order to test the communications and recovery actions.
This ends my presentation.
Ends/Friday, October 19, 2018
Issued at HKT 22:33
Issued at HKT 22:33
NNNN