Hong Kong commuters will only benefit from MTR’s signalling upgrade in 2025 as software problems delay project
- New eight-car trains, which were meant to be introduced at the same time as the signalling project was launched, will start serving commuters on Sunday
- The upgrade has taken longer than planned because it is more complex than expected, says MTR operations director
The introduction of a long-awaited upgrade to the signalling system of Hong Kong’s rail network will only begin in 2025 at the earliest, the MTR Corporation has said.
The upgrade was intended to go hand in hand with the introduction of new eight-car trains to serve several lines, but the first of these will start serving commuters on the Kwun Tong line on Sunday.
The MTR Corp on Tuesday attributed the delay of the signalling upgrade to software development issues, stressing hardware installation work had already been completed on the Tsuen Wan line and was nearly done on the Island, Kwun Tong and Tseung Kwan O lines.
“The upgrade project has taken longer than planned because it is much more complicated than expected,” operations director Tony Lee Kar-yun said. “We are now adopting a revised technical proposal for the software development.”
Instead of developing a completely new signalling system for the city, the upgrade would rely on a common one in use overseas but customised to make it compatible with the rail operating environment in Hong Kong, the company said.