More than 100 extra bus trips to be laid on this Sunday to avoid repeat of last weekend’s travel chaos on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge
- Service will be more than doubled, after thousands of travellers were left stranded on the first weekend of service
- Bus operators struggled to meet with demand at peak hours
The number of buses running between port facilities on the new cross-border mega bridge will be more than doubled on Sunday, transport officials announced on Friday. This follows the chaos on the bridge’s first weekend of operations, leaving thousands of travellers stranded for hours.
Officials hope the arrangement will ease the pressure on traffic at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, which last Saturday and Sunday saw 59,000 and 78,000 crossing the city’s border via the link, compared with just an average of just 43,000 on weekdays since it opened to traffic on October 24.
Macella Lee Sui-chun, the deputy commissioner for transport, said the operator of the 24-hour shuttle buses, popularly known as “golden buses” because of their colour, boosted its fleet from 120 to 138 on Friday and would rent 20 to 30 coaches from other operators during weekends.
She said around 100 more coach trips would be arranged for a new pre-order service for tour groups travelling from Hong Kong to Zhuhai during afternoon and evening peak hours on Sunday, carrying up to 5,000 travellers.
Lee said the shuttle-bus operator provided more than 110 coaches during peak hours last week, offering a bus every two to three minutes on average but there were still long queues because travellers from tour groups were coming at the same time in the morning and evening rush hours.
“We noticed that a lot of tour groups were queuing at the port at the same time. It was wasting everyone’s time,” she said.