ENG-1992 — Page 262

TRANSPORT

measures four kilometres from portal to portal and is the longest road tunnel in the territory. The daily throughput at the Tate's Cairn Tunnel has been increasing steadily. It carried 70 000 vehicles a day at the end of 1992. Tolls now range from $4 to $8.

The Cross Harbour Tunnel, the Eastern Harbour Crossing and Tate's Cairn Tunnel were all built by private sector franchisees under 'build, operate and transfer' arrangements.

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Traffic Management and Control

At the end of the year, there were about 1060 signalised junctions in the Territory, comprising 430 in Kowloon, 270 on Hong Kong Island and 360 in the New Territories.

In Kowloon, the operation of about 350 signalised junctions was under the control of the existing Kowloon Area Traffic Control (ATC) System, which has been in operation for more than 15 years. Due to its now obsolete technology and limited capacity, it is difficult to maintain and expand the system. Work to replace it with a modern system with adequate capacity commenced in early 1992, and the new system using a traffic responsive control technique will be commissioned in 1995. At that time, all the signalised junctions in the Kowloon peninsula will be controlled by the new system.

On Hong Kong Island, the operation of all the signalised junctions on the northern shore from Kennedy Town to Shau Kei Wan is under the control of the Hong Kong ATC System. The expansion of the system to the Mid-Levels area was substantially completed during the year. In total, about 220 junctions on Hong Kong Island were under ATC control.

Implementation works for the traffic monitoring Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) System for Hong Kong Island were completed during the year at a project cost of $18 million. Under the scheme, 35 roadside cameras were commissioned.

As the first step to extend ATC to the new towns, a contract for the installation of a new ATC System for the Tsuen Wan New Town was awarded together with the Kowloon ATC renewal contract. Initially, an interim system providing basic ATC facilities will be commissioned in 1993 controlling some 85 junctions in Tsuen Wan, Kwai Chung and Tsing Yi. The final system providing traffic responsive control will be completed in 1995. The ATC system will also be supplemented by a traffic monitoring CCTV system. When this system is commissioned in 1995, it will have about 20 roadside cameras.

Following Tsuen Wan New Town, ATC will be extended to Shatin New Town, and planning has already started for implementation of the scheme by 1996.

Parking

The government owns 14 multi-storey car parks which provide 8 200 parking spaces. They are operated and managed by a private company under a management contract. Off-street public parking is also provided by the Civil Aviation Department at Hong Kong International Airport and by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation at its terminus. The private sector also operates multi-storey and open-air public car parks in commercial buildings, housing estates and open-air lots providing over 50 000 parking spaces. On-street parking is usually metered and provided at locations where traffic conditions permit. By the end of the year, there were 13 000 metered spaces throughout the territory,