14. EFFECT ON ROAD SYSTEM
Likely Traffic Generated
14.1 The Container Committee in 1966 calculated the lorry traffic generated by the Terminal,
on the following basis:-
(a) That all the container traffic of the Colony would be handled at the Terminal. (b) That all container packing operations would also be carried out there.
Calculations were made on these assumptions to find the traffic generated if all cargo came and went by lorry. This enabled an estimate to be made of when the road access could become saturated, and when some cargo would as a result have to travel by lighter to Hong Kong Island.
14.2 The following new factors would each reduce the road traffic generated:-
14.3
(a) Some of the Colony's container traffic is likely to be handled at the proposed Tsim
Sha Tsui and North Point terminals.
(b) Some cargo is now likely to leave the Terminal in containers both for other packing
stations and for some of the larger factories.
A forecast of likely road traffic generated at various times after a firm decision to go ahead is given is shown on Table 9.
TABLE 9: FORECAST OF GENERATED TRAFFIC
Rate of Cargo Handling, million tons/year
Equivalent p.c.u. per hour both ways
Years
No. of Berths
By Road
Terminal Total
Lorry
Container
Total
Total
Lorry Container
224
21
1
0.5
0.35
0.25
0.10
3
1.5
1.05
0.74
0.31
5
3
4.5
3.15
2.4
0.75
7
6.5
4.55
3.2
1.35
9
4
8(Max.) 5.6
3.9
1.7
640
ཙ ཎྜ ཤྰ ྂ ༔
120
520
2 2 2 2
60
5
65
20
140
320
40
430
70
520
90
750
14.4
14.5
Table 9 is based on building the Terminal in the stages described in Chapter 13 and on the following assumptions:--
(a) The ratio of equivalent-passenger-car units per hour to tons per annum of break-bulk cargo on lorries would be the same as assumed in the 1966 Report, i.e. 163 p.c.u. per hour both ways for every million tons/year; this was based on various factors which have recently been confirmed by the Traffic and Transport Survey Unit as reasonable for this case.
(b) Tractor and trailer units would each be equivalent to 25% more p.c.u. than a lorry and would carry an average of 13 tons of goods; other factors are assumed to be the same as for lorry traffic which means that a given amount of goods in containers would result in only about 1/3 of the p.c.u. caused by the same amount of goods in break-bulk form on lorries.
(c) 30% of the traffic would travel by sea, either to Hong Kong Island or overseas as
re-export transhipment.
(d) 70% of the road cargo would be break-bulk on lorries and 30% would be packed
in containers on trailers.
The various factors in assumptions (b), (c) & (d) on which Table 9 is based are largely speculative. They have been assessed in order to calculate the order of traffic to be expected and thus the forecast cannot be considered as an accurate estimate. It is thought that the factors chosen are such as to give high figures of traffic for the stated throughput and rate of construction.
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