Untitled - Civic Exchange

Chapter 5:
Cleaner & More Efficient Road Transport
3. The Transport Department should re-evaluate its negative assessment of electric trolley
buses and modern trams. A feasibility study for trolley buses and trams should be re-done, but the
terms of reference for consultants should be drawn up after review by experts outside government.
• This study should seek to identify those specific routes where flexibility in re-routing
electric trolley buses or trams is not a priority, where load factors are likely to be high enough to
warrant the added investment in infrastructure (e.g., power lines), and where the local air
quality or noise situation is truly pressing. The study should also look at options for limiting
the use of diesel buses along tram or trolley bus lines and consider the most appropriate
financing arrangements for modern trams and trolley buses compared to that for diesel bus routes.
• Further, introduction of electric trolley buses or modern trams should be a major
transport priority in new development areas.
4. As discussed in Chapter 7, it seems likely that ERP was evaluated in such a manner (with
regard to the types of vehicles potentially affected by ERP) as to largely pre-determine the
findings of the study, or at least those sections of the study that have been made public.
ERP should be the subject of a new study in which the consultants' brief has first been
reviewed by independent experts outside government, as with the assessment of electric
trolley buses and trams.
5. Until ERP is implemented inclusive of goods vehicles, goods vehicles should be banned
from congested areas for three to four hours each working day, split between morning and
evening peak (or near peak) hours.
6. The Transport Department should conduct a thorough evaluation of the benefits in terms
of congestion reduction from the provision of low-cost park and ride facilities 187 at rail
stations outside the core urban areas. (It might even be worth assessing whether low-cost
park and ride facilities might be introduced at a few bus stations in the far New Territories).
While the New Territories would likely be the primary area for low cost park and ride
facilities, they should also be considered for Hong Kong Island and parts of Kowloon. The
re-assessment of park and ride facilities should be coupled with another (and more credible) look
at the impact of an increase in parking charges in core urban areas during normal business hours.
7. The government should evaluate and, if deemed appropriate, encourage the import of natural gas
single-decker buses and medium goods vehicles. In partnership with CLP Power, the government
should simultaneously explore the possibility of diverting some or all of the natural gas now being
used in a relatively inefficient way at Castle Peak for use as a clean transport fuel. This
experience would be valuable in determining how much of a role natural gas vehicles could play
in the Pearl River Delta after the LNG facility in Guangdong is operational.
8. The government should continue to promote the use of clean diesel but expand this scheme to
include trials of bio-diesel and hybrid vehicles, especially buses. It should also keep abreast of
developments in fuel cell technology. With this noted, the environmental and energy drawbacks
of fuel cell vehicles reliant on methanol or petrol should be carefully considered before any move
to introduce these kinds of vehicles.
187 Again, a re-assessment of park and ride should be done only after the scope of work for the consultants has been
reviewed by a group of experts outside of government.
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