Public transport services in Queen’s Hill
The Transport Department (TD) today (September 2) said that the TD has been very concerned about the transportation needs of the Queen's Hill residents, and has been keeping close contact with public transport operators on coordinating service arrangements.
To accommodate the transportation needs between Queen's Hill and other areas in the district, the TD has coordinated with KMB and green minibus (GMB) operator to deploy additional resources to strengthen the services of KMB Route 78A to/from Fanling and the services of NT GMB Route 503K to/from Sheung Shui. The public transport operators have also arranged staff stationed at stops in Queen's Hill during peak hours to manage passengers queueing and adjust vehicle deployment when necessary.
Regarding the first school day on September 1, the TD deployed staff on site to monitor the situation. More passengers were observed during the busiest period in the morning peak hours (around 7am – 8am), nevertheless, passengers of KMB Route 78A were able to board within five minutes on average, and passengers of GMB were also able to board within 10 minutes in general. However, the journeys of some GMB trips were affected by busy traffic and illegal parking along Lung Sum Avenue, Lung Ma Road and Ma Sik Road, therefore some GMBs were not able to return to the Queen's Hill GMB terminus as scheduled, and passengers had longer waiting time between 7.30am and 8am.
To smoothen the public transport services in Queen's Hill, the TD reviewed the service arrangements with KMB and GMB operator yesterday and implemented improvement measures today, which included deployment of mobile Octopus processor and arranging two buses to pick up passengers simultaneously by KMB at Queen's Hill bus terminus, so as to shorten the passengers boarding time. In addition, the Police has stepped up enforcement against illegal parking in the region, which alleviated the impact on GMB journeys to facilitate more regular services. The TD deployed staff to monitor the transport services in Queen's Hill today, and observed that the queueing and boarding for bus services were in order and the operation of GMB was also normal. Passengers were able to board GMB within 10 minutes overall.
To further enhance the public transport services in Queen's Hill, the TD has coordinated with KMB to operate two special departures to serve schools in Fanling (South) and Sheung Shui (South) during the morning peak hours to cater for the students' transportation demand with effect from next Monday (September 5).
The TD will continue to closely monitor the public transport demands in Queen's Hill to review and improve the public transport services to cater for the commuting needs of residents as and when necessary.