Time to hit the brakes on Hong Kong’s runaway car numbers

Hong Kong’s roadside air quality has continued to deteriorate despite the government’s strong efforts to control emissions. Blame it on the relentless growth in our road traffic.

Multiple factors lead to traffic congestion, of course, but a key factor – as identified by the Transport Advisory Committee – is the huge number of vehicles on our roads. Between 2006 and 2016, the number of licensed vehicles in Hong Kong increased by 35 per cent, compared with the growth rate of 16 per cent between 1996 and 2006. By the end of last year, the city had some 746,000 licensed vehicles. If the trend persists, Hong Kong will see a million vehicles by 2026.

Political inertia the most pernicious cause of road congestion in Hong Kong

The movement of passengers and goods is important to an economy, but having more vehicles does not necessarily mean higher efficiency. Even worse, it imposes a hefty cost on everyone. To use a comparison, in the online world, we’re free to roam wherever we like, as long as our data plans allow for it. If too much traffic overloads a server, causing the website to shut down, we can always go to another website.

But, in the real world, congestion brings serious consequences for all. Being stuck in slow-moving vehicle queues wastes our time. More importantly, it affects our health. Clean Air Network recently analysed the patterns of our transport activities and air pollution, based on 2016 data, and arrived at two findings.

Mobile app helps Hongkongers to plan out less-polluted route

First, traffic peak hours aligned with the pollution peak hours. The associated health risk escalated by as much as 2.6 times during peak hours, compared with quieter periods.