256 Transport
copies of Taxi Newsletters to taxi drivers free of charge, and distributed leaflets at the Airport, Hong Kong Disneyland and Lok Ma Chau Control Point to provide useful information on taxi services to taxi drivers, passengers and tourists.
Ferries
Ferries provide essential transport links to outlying islands where no land transport alternatives are available. They also provide an alternative transport service within the inner harbour and to other areas in Hong Kong.
At year-end, one ferry operator provided two cross-harbour franchised passenger ferry services and 12 ferry operators provided 28 licensed passenger ferry services. serving outlying islands, new towns and inner-harbour. These franchised/licensed services were supplemented by about 75 kaito services, which provided services to relatively remote parts of Hong Kong.
Ferries recorded a daily average of about 91 900 passenger trips within the harbour and about 62 300 passenger trips to/from the outlying islands.
Transport Management
Effective transport management is essential for the orderly and safe operation of the transport system. The Government's regulatory powers are provided under the Road Traffic Ordinance. Every effort is made to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of transport management through the use of modern technology in a variety of areas.
Licensing
At year-end, there were 1 837 086 licensed drivers, 544 605 licensed private vehicles and 6 429 government vehicles. There were 359 016 licensed private cars, of which 25 638 were new vehicles registered during the year. Registered goods vehicles totalled 122 584, of which 76 118 were light goods vehicles, 42 998 were medium goods vehicles and 3 468 were heavy goods vehicles. On average, there were 3 682 new learner-drivers per month.
Since the introduction of the Driving-offence Points System in August 1984, 77 871 disqualifications have been ordered by the courts and 782 052 notices served under the Road Traffic (Driving-offence Points) Ordinance. The figures for 2006 were 3 322 and 47 949 respectively.
Driver Improvement Scheme
Over the past five years, 492 036 drivers incurred Driving-offence Points for committing scheduled offences under the Driving-offence Points System. Drivers can join the driving improvement course voluntarily and the court is empowered to direct a driver who has committed any scheduled offence with five or more driving-offence points under the Road Traffic (Driving-Offence Points) Ordinance to attend the driving improvement course. A driver who has satisfactorily completed the driving improvement course and obtained a course certificate issued by a driving improvement school has three driving-offence points deducted from his total driving- offence points already incurred.