The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) today (December 12) urged the public to stop using three models of LDNIO extension unit with the model numbers SK3460, SK3661 and SK3662.

     The EMSD recently found that the above three extension units do not comply with the relevant safety standards, including that the plug of each model was not fused and the flexible cords were undersized, thus posing an overheating safety hazard to users.

     These extensions units are supplied through the HKTV Mall on-line store. HKTV Mall has committed to notify the affected customers for recalling the products and will post notices announcing the recall arrangement on their website (www.hktvmall.com).

     As these extension units could possibly be supplied at other retail points in the market, the EMSD alerts members of the public not to purchase these products. The EMSD is further investigating the origin of these extension units.

     The EMSD also reminds the public to note during the purchase of extension units that the extension units should be in compliance with the relevant safety standards (e.g. marked with British Standard (BS1363)), and to use them properly for the sake of safety.

      

     The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) concluded the second round of its anti-rodent operation in designated target areas in various districts on December 7. During the operation, the FEHD collected 1 006 dead rodents, caught 829 rodents in traps and took out 362 prosecutions. The operation effectively enhanced the rodent prevention and control work at the district level.
      
     An FEHD spokesman said, "The FEHD launched a two-month anti-rodent operation in designated target areas on October 8, and adopted multi-pronged strategies including improving environmental hygiene, rodent disinfestation and enforcement action to carry out targeted anti-rodent work. In the past two months, the FEHD strengthened rodent disinfestation work at problematic spots such as rear lanes, refuse collection points, markets, hawker bazaars, cooked food markets and peripheral areas of construction sites. The department placed poisonous baits and traps at 12 328 and 14 016 locations respectively, and destroyed 460 rat holes, with 1 006 dead rodents collected and 829 rodents caught in traps.
      
     "Apart from strengthening rodent elimination work, FEHD staff also enhanced street cleaning services and cleansing of public markets and hawker bazaars in the target areas, including sweeping and washing of streets and rear lanes, emptying and cleaning of litter containers, and clearance of miscellaneous articles and refuse on the streets, in public markets and at hawker bazaars, so as to keep the environment clean.
      
     "In addition, the FEHD stepped up inspections of food premises, markets, hawker bazaars and cooked food markets. Enforcement actions against food premises causing poor environmental hygiene conditions, food preparation and scullery at rear lanes and improper handling and disposal of rubbish were strengthened. The FEHD conducted 16 136 inspections, issued 2 495 health advisories, 1 182 verbal warnings, 48 warning letters, one statutory notice and 652 fixed penalty notices, and took out 362 prosecutions."
      
     Since the improper handling of food waste and remnants by food premises can give rise to rodent problems, the FEHD has started a five-week territory-wide special operation on December 10, just after the anti-rodent operation, to target irregularities of food premises such as food preparation, scullery, improper storage of articles, illegal disposal of refuse (including dumping of bagged refuse in small hours) at rear lanes, with a view to further enhancing the awareness of rodent prevention and control among the operators of food premises, by educating them to adopt measures to combat rodent problems and upkeep the hygiene condition of rear lanes as well as taking stringent enforcement action. The FEHD will also continue to step up cleansing and rodent elimination work at rear lanes, as well as public education and publicity.
      
     The spokesman said that cross sector co-operation is essential to sustaining effective rodent prevention and control. He called on the community to continue their support and participation in the anti-rodent work, and to eliminate the three fundamental survival conditions of rodents in their daily life, namely food, harbourage and passages, meaning the elimination of the food sources and hiding places of rodents as well as blockage of their dispersal routes.

The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

     The spokesperson for Kowloon Hospital (KH) made the following appeal today (December 12) regarding an in-patient who failed to return from home leave.
 
     A male patient, aged 46, applied for home leave from the hospital but did not return to the hospital on schedule last Thursday (December 6). The patient did not provide any contacts for his relatives during his hospitalisation. To ensure timely medication treatment for the patient, the hospital reported the case to the Police for assistance on December 7 and will support the Police in the search.
 
     The patient is about 1.86 metres tall and of thin build, has short black hair and wears glasses. The hospital appeals to the public to contact the Police or call the hospital hotline (3129 7111) if they know the whereabouts of the patient.

     The Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, this afternoon (December 12) visited Kowloon City District, where he toured a special school, visited some specialty shops and met with members of the Kowloon City District Council (KCDC) to learn more about the latest developments and needs of the district. 
 
     Accompanied by the Chairman of the KCDC, Mr Pun Kwok-wah; the Vice Chairman of the KCDC, Mr Cho Wui-hung; and the District Officer (Kowloon City), Mr Franco Kwok, Mr Chan first visited Mary Rose School. The school was established in 1970 to provide a good learning environment and whole-person education to children with intellectual disabilities. Mr Chan listened to a briefing given by the Principal of the school, Ms Chan Ngar-lai, on the operation of the school and students' school life. 
 
     He then walked along Hau Wong Road and South Wall Road, visited several specialty shops and exchanged views with business operators and other members of the community. He said that the public consultation exercise for the 2019-20 Budget has been launched, and encouraged people to express their views through the various consultation channels, so as to assist the Government to better prepare the Budget.
 
     Before concluding the visit, Mr Chan met with members of the KCDC to exchange views on various livelihood and development issues of the district.

            

     Following is a question by the Hon Jeremy Tam and a written reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, in the Legislative Council today (December 12):

Question:

     In 2010, the then Chief Executive indicated in his Policy Address that "[t]he ultimate policy objective of the Government is to have zero emission buses running across the territory." Nevertheless, as at early this year, among the 36 single-deck electric buses purchased by franchised bus companies (bus companies) with full subsidies by the Government, only 24 buses had been put into service. It has been reported that bus companies face quite a number of difficulties should they switch to use electric buses for the whole bus fleets, including that thousands of bus parking spaces have not been installed with electric bus charging facilities, the power supply facilities at parking spaces and in bus depots do not have the capacity to meet the power demand for simultaneous charging of a large number of electric buses, and there are a host of technical issues. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(1) whether it knows in respect of each bus company, the respective current numbers of bus parking spaces located at (i) bus termini, (ii) bus depots and (iii) other places, and among them, the numbers of those provided with charging facilities as well as their detailed locations (set out in a table by name of bus company and location of the parking space);

(2) whether it knows the following details of each of the electric buses already put in service: (i) the bus model, (ii) the manufacturer and place of origin, (iii) the route number and the first and last stops of the bus route plied by the bus, (iv) the number of breakdowns in the past year, (v) the location of and site area occupied by its charging facilities, and (vi) the amperage for charging (set out by name of bus company in a table);

(3) whether it knows the time needed for fully charging the supercapacitor buses already put in service and their power storage capacities, as well as their maximum travel distance; the maximum number of supercapacitor buses that can be simultaneously charged under the existing power supply facility of each bus depot;

(4) of the performance indicators for those electric buses which are plying (i) routes with more uphill roads and (ii) routes with more level roads (set out in the table below);
 

 
(5) whether it has assessed if it is technically feasible to have more bus routes switched to be plied by electric buses; if it has assessed and the outcome is in the affirmative, of the route numbers and details of such routes, and whether there are plans and timetables for switching to plying such routes by electric buses;

(6) whether, in the coming three years, it will provide assistance to bus companies for installing more electric bus charging facilities and upgrading such facilities; and

(7) whether it has reviewed the progress in achieving the objective of "hav[ing] zero emission buses running across the territory" and the effectiveness of the relevant measures; if so, of the outcome; if not, whether it will conduct a review expeditiously?

Reply:

President,

     Electric buses do not have exhaust emissions. Successful replacement of conventional diesel franchised buses with electric buses in Hong Kong can significantly improve our roadside air quality. In this connection, the Government provided $180 million to fully subsidise five franchised bus companies, including Kowloon Motor Bus Company (1933) Limited (KMB), Long Win Bus Company Limited (LWB), Citybus Limited (CTB), New World First Bus Services Limited (NWFB) and New Lantao Bus Company (1973) Limited (NLB), to acquire 36 single-deck electric buses (including 28 battery-electric buses and eight supercapacitor buses) for conducting a two-year trial to test out their operational performance, reliability as well as economic feasibility in local conditions.

     At present, 26 battery-electric buses and four supercapacitor buses have commenced operation. The remaining two battery-electric buses of NLB are under re-tendering process (Note 1), and are expected to commence operation by the end of 2019 at the earliest. Besides, the four KMB's supercapacitor buses are expected to commence operation in the first and second quarters of 2019 respectively.

     Our reply to the question raised by the Hon Jeremy Tam is as follows:

(1) and (2) The current number of bus parking spaces located at bus termini and bus depots in various districts are as follows:
 

  
     As regards the electric buses which have commenced or completed the trials, the following information is set out in Annex 1: (i) number, model, manufacturer and origin of buses; (ii) service route (the origins and destinations); (iii) day of commencement of trial; (iv) location of charging facilities; (v) number of charging facilities and its site area; (vi) information of electricity storage device and charging requirement; and (vii) monthly average number of on-road breakdowns and bus availability (per cent).

(3) The four supercapacitor buses in operation are belonged to KMB and the trial has not yet completed (Note 2). According to the preliminary trial results, supercapacitor buses can be fully charged in about 20 minutes and travel about 20 to 30 kilometres (km) after a full charge. Therefore, supercapacitor buses are more suitable for short routes and franchised bus companies are required to provide charging facilities at bus stops and/or termini so that supercapacitor buses can be timely charged. To facilitate the trial of supercapacitor buses on the circular route of 284, KMB installed two charging facilities at Sha Tin Central Bus Terminus and KMB Sha Tin Depot respectively to ensure that supercapacitor buses could provide smooth and reliable bus services. Each charging facility can provide charging for one supercapacitor bus at a time.

(4) In general, the electricity consumption of electric buses running on uphill roads is higher than that running on level roads. The trial routes mostly compose of uphill roads and level roads, and thus we are not able to evaluate separately their performance for uphill roads and level roads. Having said that, according to the completed trials' result of five BYD battery-electric buses, the energy consumption of trial route with more uphill roads (i.e. Route No. 81) is about 16 per cent more than the trial route with more level roads (i.e. Route No. 78). As regards the maintenance fee, the electric buses and charging facilities of the trial are still within the warranty period and the suppliers are responsible for the maintenance. As such, data about the maintenance fee and the overall operational fee are not available. A summary of the trial findings up to May 31, 2018 is at Annex 2.

(5), (6) and (7) Currently, there are about 6 000 franchised buses in Hong Kong. About 95 per cent of which are double-deckers and the remaining are single-deckers. The feasibility of promoting the implementation of electric bus services throughout or in individual areas of Hong Kong depends very much on the maturity of electric bus technologies, their prices and suitability for use in Hong Kong. We have to test and prove that the relevant technology is suitable for the local environment and the actual modus operandi of the public transport sector before introduction of electric buses on a large scale.

     The technology of single-deck electric buses is already used in places outside Hong Kong, but the operation in Hong Kong is subject to further test to ascertain the suitability for use in Hong Kong. The technology of double-deck electric buses is still developing and there are very few models available in the international arena. Furthermore, their passenger carrying capacity and operational efficiency still fail to fulfil the local operational needs (including long daily service hours, high peak passenger loadings, the need to tackle hilly terrains as well as intense air-conditioning demand in hot and humid summer, etc.). We will keep in view the technological development of double-deck electric buses and trials in other places so as to introduce suitable models for trial in due course.

     As regards the single-deck battery-electric buses, the two-year trial of the first batch of five BYD battery-electric buses was completed in May 2018. The overall average daily driving range of the five buses during the trial was about 190 km. However, under high ambient temperature demanding high loading of air-conditioning system, the driving range reduced to about 150 km, which could not meet the normal daily requirement of most of the single-deck bus routes of 200 to 300 km. It is our initial view that the wider use of single-deck battery-electric buses in Hong Kong will hinge on the following two factors:

(i) whether the battery capacity of single-deck battery-electric bus could be substantially increased later enabling it to travel about 300 km a day after a full charge; and/or

(ii) whether there is adequate space and power capacity for installation of charging facilities at the termini or public transport interchanges for top-up charging of the single-deck battery-electric buses in daytime taking into account mode of charging in daytime and high operation frequency of buses in Hong Kong.

     As for single-deck supercapacitor buses, they can travel about 20 to 30 km only after a full charge and thus more suitable for short routes. Bus stops and/or bus termini would be required to provide charging facilities for timely re-charging of the supercapacitor buses. Whether the supercapacitor buses can be further promoted depends on the availability of suitable short routes of single-deck buses and public transport interchanges or bus termini, which the routes pass through, that can provide adequate space and power capacity for installation of top-up charging facilities.

     The Government will continue to monitor the trial of electric franchised buses and work with the franchised bus companies to investigate the charging solutions to suit local operational needs. If the trial results are satisfactory, the Government will promote wider use of single-deck electric buses by the franchised bus companies, taking into account affordability of the companies and passengers. We will also keep in view the technological development of double-deck electric buses and consider at a suitable juncture to carry out trials with the franchised bus companies in Hong Kong.

Note 1: NLB completed the tendering for procurement of two battery-electric buses earlier. As the supplier has subsequently withdrawn their offer, NLB has to re-tender the contract.

Note 2: Two buses commenced the trial in March 2017 and and another two in November 2018.