Want to go places in Hong Kong but don't know how to get there? The Transport Department has come to the rescue.
Finding out how to go from points A to B on the MTR, bus, green minibus or the ferry; take a cross-boundary coach to Huanggang, a bus to Ma Wan or Discovery Bay - they are all available on a new traffic search application for iPhone launched by the department yesterday.
'It's an international trend and [the service] is especially suitable for Hong Kong,' said Kenneth Cheng Kin of the E-government Service Delivery unit. 'Half of the mobile phone users have smartphones with internet connectivity.'
The application, Hong Kong eTransport, developed at a cost of HK$360,000, is an extension of the browser-based service the department already offers. Users can download the bilingual app free and conduct point-to-point searches for the quickest or the cheapest routes. Prices and the estimated time a trip takes are also shown in the search. Users can locate themselves by GPS, bookmark places, view maps and check traffic conditions in the application. For drivers looking for the most convenient route, the department has also launched a new internet browser.
The assistant commissioner for transport, Leung Tak-fai, said users of smartphones with Android or other operating systems would have to wait until the end of this year or early next year for a compatible version of the app.
In the past, only around 1,500 people could access the server at one time. Leung said the department had increased the app's capacity to 2,500, expecting a surge in the number of users. The capacity is shared by the browser and iPhone users.