ENG-1988 — Page 255

TRANSPORT

Administration

213

The Transport Branch of the Government Secretariat, headed by the Secretary for Transport, is responsible for the overall policy formulation and the direction and co-ordination of all transport matters. The Secretary for Transport is assisted by the Transport Advisory Committee (TAC), which advises the Governor in Council on major transport policies and issues. The TAC has 19 appointed members, including the chairman and six government officials. The Secretary for Transport also chairs the Transport Policy Co-ordinating Committee which oversees the co-ordination and implementation of policies and projects.

The execution of transport policies and measures is carried out by the Transport Department and the Highways Department.

The Commissioner for Transport heads the Transport Department, which regulates internal road and waterborne public transport. On these matters, the commissioner is advised by the Standing Conference on Road Use and the Standing Committee on Waterborne Transport.

The department has also established a Prosecutions Unit, which took over from the Traffic Police all prosecutions involving buses, driving offence points, breach of tunnel regulations and vehicle safety equipment.

A Transport Tribunal, set up under the Road Traffic Ordinance, and chaired by a non-government member, provides the public with an avenue of appeal against decisions made by the Commissioner for Transport in respect of the registration and licensing of vehicles and the issue of hire-car permits and passenger service licences.

The Director of Highways heads the Highways Department, which is responsible for designing and building all highways and roads, and for their repair and maintenance.

Planning

A forecast of transport needs up to the year 2001 and the formulation of an implementation programme of strategic transport facilities to meet this need, is being examined in the context of the Second Comprehensive Transport Study.

Meanwhile, other sub-regional studies continued. The Western District Transport Study and the North-west Kowloon Traffic Study were completed during the year. The Central and Wan Chai Reclamation Study, the West Kowloon Reclamation Transport Study and the Green Island Reclamation Study will continue into 1989.

Work on the Preliminary Engineering Feasibility Study of Route 'X', now re-named as Route 3 for the section linking the northwestern New Territories with western Kowloon was completed in June 1988. Several alignment options have been identified and a second stage feasibility study has begun to select the optimum alignments.

Other on-going studies were improvements to the road network in the Mid-Levels, north-western Kowloon and Tsim Sha Tsui, design for the hillside escalator link between Central and Mid-Levels, the Yuen Long Southern Bypass, Au Tau Bypass, the Yuen Long-Tuen Mun Eastern Corridor, the Hiram's Highway Improvement Stage I, the Kwun Tong By-pass Phase III.

Cross Border Traffic

Traffic between Hong Kong and China via the road crossing point at Man Kam To continued to rise, with the number of vehicles travelling in both directions increasing from 8 500 per day in December 1987 to 9 700 per day in December 1988. Traffic at the Sha Tau Kok crossing increased from 1 100 vehicles per day in December 1987 to 3 400 per day in

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