“Z-plates” or cross-boundary cars are more common in Hong Kong now, with cross-boundary private car trips up 5.8% in 2019

• Cross-border car traffic up 5.8% to 9.3 million crossings
• Licensed cars up 1.5% for the year, up 46% on decade
• Public buses up 0.5% for year, 3% on decade

Cross-border car traffic was up 5.8% in 2019, with over 9.3 million private car crossings between Hong Kong and the Mainland over the year, around 25,500 per day, according to figures released by the government today.

Private cars now account for 58.9% of cross border traffic, with goods vehicle volume slumping 5.1% for the year.

The number of licensed private cars grew 1.5% to 573,932, up 46% in the last decade.

Meanwhile the number of public buses and minibuses has grown  just 0.3% per year over the same period, with the number of public minibuses shrinking for the third year running (4,315 in 2019 against 4,347 in 2018).

For the year, MTR handled an average of 5.1 million passenger journeys every day and the five franchised bus companies delivered 4.1 million passenger journeys per day. Red and green minibuses accounted for 1.8 million journeys, while registered taxis served about 0.9 million passenger trips.

“Hong Kong has the busiest roads in the world, registering a vehicle density of 373 vehicles per kilometre of road at the end of 2019,” says the report from the Census & Statistics Department

The government says it added 4 km of new public roads in 2019, “reflecting the government’s continued efforts in improving vehicular flows on roads.”