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1.1.11.1.1 Transport affects the life of every resident of Hong Kong, not only directly in thedaily journeys to work, school or other activities but also indirectly, by its influenceon the economic activity and prosperity of the Territory. The development andmaintenance of an efficient transport system has long been a centra! policy ofGovernment.1.1.2 Hong Kong is expanding rapidly, both geographically, with the development of theNew Territories and economically with one of the highest GDP growth rates in theworld. To accommodate this expansion, some two to three billion dollars areinvested every year in the construction of new highways and railways. Thisinvestment is mostly by Government. There are a large number of potential projectsto choose from, but there are practical limits to both financing and constructionindustry capacity. Therefore, new projects must be planned carefully to obtain themaximum benefits from new transport investments as part of the overall investmentstrategy for the Territory.1.1.3 Government also manages transport activities by its policies on such things ascontrolling the provision of public transport services to reduce wasteful duplicationof resources, measures to limit the number and usage of inefficient modes, bus lanes,parking provision and vehicle licensing. Without this control, many of the benefits ofnew construction would be lost to increased traffic congestion. Transport policiesmust be directed to ensure that priority is given to the most essential" and efficientusers of the transport system.1.1.4 While the planning of transport investment and policies is a continuing activity ofGovernment, it is useful from time to time to stand back and review past progressand future objectives in these matters. This was the task of the Second ComprehensiveTransport Study (CTS-2). it is the Government's intention of carrying outsimilar reviews as and when necessary after the completion of the Study.Special Character of Hong Kong Transport1.1.5 In the past twenty years, Hong Kong emerged as a major world centre of industryand finance, In total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Hong Kong now ranks 42nd inthe World out of 211 nations (listed in "The World in Figures" published by TheEconomist of London, 1 987 Edition); just 10 years ago it ranked 60th. A total of 102of the licensed banks in Hong Kong are among the top 500 banks in the world in1987 and 76 are ranked among the top 100.1.1.6 Yet all this activity is concentrated into a land area of only 1 070 square kilometresand much of this consists of steep hills and uninhabited islands. The built-up area ofHong Kong covers oniy 96 square kilometres and contains some of the highestdensity residential areas in the world. This combination of economic prosperity andtight geographical constraints makes Hong Kong unique in the world of transport;this is illustrated in Figure 1.1.1.1.7 Vehicle Ownership—The main graph in Figure 1.1. shows car ownership (cars perthousand persons) compared with relative prosperity (GDP per head) fora selectionof 21 countries. Hong Kong by world standards is very prosperous with a GDP perhead greater than many of the smaller European countries and far ahead of mostother countries in South-East Asia. On the other hand, car ownership is extremelylow, ranking well below countries of similar GDP per head (one third of the carownership levels in Singapore, for example) and is generally exceeded by all but thepoorest countries shown. This is illustrated further in the smaller graph showing carand commercial vehicle ownership per unit of GDP. Only Bangladesh has a smallernumber of vehicles and the highest ranked country has twelve times the number ofvehicles per unit of GDP as Hong Kong.11