HK traffic management: overtaken by frontier countries?

 

HK govt’s slogans when marketing the city has long been “Asia’s World City”, but this title certainly is not worthy when applied to HK’s ever archaic and user unfriendly traffic management systems. In this and a following article, we highlight some aspects that show up how HK has become a backward city in this most important aspect of citizen’s daily life.

High anxiety at traffic lights

When dealing with situations where patience is needed, and where uncertainty is high such as at red lights where the waiting time could be anything from 30 seconds to well over a minute, do you not feel a calming effect when you can see the red light counting down to zero?

Isn’t it also safer when you drive towards crossings, but are unsure whether the light will turn amber/red at any minute?

These surely are the exact reasons why increasingly cities around the world are moving towards a countdown system, be it from red light to green, or the other way round? What should shock most visiting road users from other jurisdictions to HK should be how lacking is this simplest of form of user-friendly feature at HK’s roadside, when city after city have already adopted it all around us:

 

For example, Singapore has adopted the system since 2003, and even cities in emerging economies like Shenzhen (from 2009), Ho Chi Minh (2010), and Bangkok (2013) have followed suit. As far as we know from searching the internet, the best HK govt has done is a trial programme in 2022, with no follow-on action whatsoever.

The benefits of countdowns at traffic lights are already well documented in various research studies, including:

a)     significantly improved driver response at intersections – drivers make safer decisions in the “dilemma zone,” where they are unsure whether to stop or proceed when the light turns yellow. Drivers stopped 13% more before the lights and reduced deceleration rates prior to stopping (see report);

b)     reduced start-up lost time at the beginning of the green phase by ~22%, which translates to a more efficient flow of traffic and reduced delays (see report).

c)     decreased red-light violations of as high as 50% during the initial phase of the red light, improving safety;

d)     enhanced roadway capacity by reducing headway fluctuations among vehicles, leading to an increase in the overall capacity of the intersection by about 5% to 10%

There are many other benefits cited in the above research, which we will not repeat here. Given how wide ranging the advantages are, and how widespread the adoption of countdown traffic lights, one cannot help but wonder out loud: what is HK Transport Department doing delaying its roll out?

 Diagonal pedestrian crossings – need immediately roll out

Whilst even third-tier cities like Changsha (see Figure 5) have widely adopted diagonal pedestrian crossings, HK has only timidly implemented its first such arrangement.

 

Figure 5: diagonal pedestrian crossing in Changsha, China

Our first diagonal crossing was only put in place at the junction of Sha Kok Street and Yat Tai Street in Sha Tin on 31 Jan 2024, and the second crossing at Carnarvon Road and Granville Road, Tsim Sha Tsui began in August:

 

It is interesting to see how people used common sense to diagonally cross even before the designated routings are painted on the ground. The benefits are obvious – for many pedestrians, their destination is not just one street across, but two (hence the diagonal crossing), and having the new arrangement must save millions of hours of waiting time a year for the pavement users collectively.

Instead of waiting for public pressure to build up before making moves, why has the Transport Department not initiated studies to look into the time savings? In fact multiple research studies have already been done already, for example: the Vaziri study in Beverly Hills (see here) in late 90s showed an average 66% reduction in pedestrian accidents at these intersections.

Where next to implement? Please leave comment below!

We end with the world’s most famous diagonal crossing in the world: Shibuya Station crossing in Tokyo (Figure 8) – it was inaugurated in 1973. Such ‘pedestrian scrambles’ as they are known in Japan is so popular that there are over 300 such intersections all over Japan today (reference here).

 

Figure 8: Shibuya Crossing, Tokoyo

So, HK has a lot of ground to make up, we have a number of potential candidates (eg. Pedder St in Central) that we have identified ourselves, but your contribution can no doubt vastly expand the target list, thus spreading convenience to all pedestrians in HK…

 

Figure 9: possitble addition: Pedder Street - Des Vouex Road junction?

 

The author would like to thank Ng Shiu Long Colin from City University of Hong Kong majoring in Global Business for assisting in data collection, analysis, and drafting this article.