The international rise of mega-cities has pressured governments to link sustainability to transportation in the 21st century. For participants of transportation studies, Hong Kong represents an interesting case of a world-class city with a highly sophisticated transportation network settled in tight geographical limits. With the development of its transportation network, however, Hong Kong’s environmental issues have seen an increasingly global spotlight.
This paper aims to address three environmental issues within the scope of the transportation system in Hong Kong: traffic congestion, vehicular air pollution, and environmental inequality. Firstly, I will discuss how these issues are related to Hong Kong’s environmental concerns. This discussion will be followed up by a brief explanation of why traffic congestion should take the highest priority among the three issues. Secondly, I will examine how Hong Kong has incorporated information technologies, specifically Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), in mitigating the environmental costs of Hong KongÍs transport infrastructure. However, in order to gain a sense of the environmental stakes of the transport system, one must briefly consider the unique geographical characteristics of Hong Kong.
With a population of more than seven million residents, the population density of Hong Kong is, in terms of usable land, approximately 34,000 people per square kilometer (Tang & Lo, 2008, 564). Moreover, as a result of its relatively small land mass (1,104 km2), the expansion of road networks in Hong Kong is limited. Therefore, Hong Kong has worked actively to create an effective transport system that reduces the demand for private transport. Almost 12 million journeys are made through public transport, primarily from rail-based and bus-based services, while one million are done by private transport (Tam & Lam, 2005, p. 81). This impressive undertaking, however, is contrasted by the fact that private vehicles have seen “97 percent of the growth in passenger transport over the past five years. (Vuylsteke, 2013, para. 5).” Because a growing fraction of commuters of public transport have resorted to private transport in fulfilling their daily commuting needs, traffic congestion has become more pronounced in the geographically small region.
Traffic congestion occurs when traffic demand of and incidents on a road network reach a point that results in vehicular queueing and occasional idling, thus slowing the entire flow of the traffic stream and lessening the economic productivity of the general public. Hong Kong has a high vehicle density in its road networks despite the fact that the region has a relatively low level of car ownership with 49 cars for every thousand people (Cullinane, 2003, pp. 26-28). This density is due to its relatively short supply of land in regard to its highly urban settings. Hence, the government must tackle the economic and environmental problems posed by increasing vehicle congestion in the region’s tightly bound transportation system by encouraging the use of public transport and reducing the demand for private car ownership (Cullinane, 2001, p. 26-28).
Vehicular air pollution, the introduction of chemical emissions and particulates from vehicle exhaust at a rate that damages the natural environment, has been an indisputable concern in Hong Kong. According to the Environmental Protection Department of Hong Kong (2012), “motor vehicles account for 82% of carbon monoxide, 22% of nitrogen oxides, and 30% of particulate matter of the local pollution loading (Fan et. al., 2012, p. 213).” These airborne emissions become more concentrated in urban settings because of the high-rise buildings that bring about a confined space between the building’s adjacent roads. In consequence, Hong Kong has recently instituted the strict European emission standards on registered vehicles in order to decrease the prevalence of diesel and petrol vehicles on the region’s road network (Fan et. al., 2012, p. 211). Nonetheless, Hong Kong has been criticized for repeatedly failing to meet its own Air Quality indexes and those of the World Health Organization. Moreover, the expected increase of private car ownership in the following decades means that vehicles will have a larger stake in the air pollution challenge.
Environmental inequality aspires to have “everyone enjoy equal access to a clean environment and equal protection from possible environmental harm (Fan et. al., 2012, p. 211).” A common principle includes the relief of environmental costs on minority and low-income populations. Transportation studies have incorporated environmental inequality in regard to noise and air pollution originating from road traffic. Lam and Chung (2012) and Fan et. al. (2012) investigated the differential exposure of road-traffic noise and vehicular air pollutants, respectively, among socioeconomic groups in Hong Kong. Both found that market forces of private housing present more residential mobility to the affluent resident. In turn, a situation of environmental inequality has arisen in Hong Kong as private low-income residents are coerced to gather in urban neighborhoods with a high exposure of air pollution.
Although air pollution and environmental inequality represent a comprehensive field of environmental challenges, these two issues can not be fully resolved without addressing the rising problem of traffic congestion. Clearly, traffic congestion in Hong Kong has served as an important source of the problems that have generated difficulties in reducing air pollution and subsequently social disruptions characterized by environmental inequality. In order to alleviate the situations of environmental inequality along with the current levels of air pollution, Hong Kong must focus on a wide-scale modification of the transport infrastructure in a way that pushes the actively mobile population to practice sustainable transport behaviors.
Since 1999, Hong Kong has incorporated in its transport strategy, “Hong Kong Moving Ahead,” the “better use of advanced technologies in transport management. (pp. Lam, 2001, p. 1004).” In essence, these various technologies, defined as Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), aim to provide data and information on traffic conditions through a system of communication technologies. The role of ITS in demand-side management is to distribute information to the general public and guide them to their destinations in the most efficient and direct manner (Lam, 2002, p. 225). Ultimately, ITS seeks to improve the flow of traffic on the road network without compromising the transport needs or safety of the commuter while facilitating effective traffic management and the reduction of vehicular air emissions.
Hong Kong has actively invested in three applications of ITS: transport information systems, vehicle positioning systems, and electronic road pricing. Firstly, transport information systems work by streaming to mobile devices information of traffic conditions pertaining to a commuter’s journey (Lam, 2001, p. 1001). In April 2010, the Hong Kong Transport Department launched a Driving Route Search Service (DRSS) on its website for Hong Kong commuters. The DRSS is unique because it incorporates adaptive traffic control systems (ATCS), sensor technologies that signal traffic dynamics at junctions of the road network in Hong Kong (Lam, 2002, p. 228). The ATCS offers an accurate sense of the volume of real-time traffic at given routes and sends updates to the commuter through communication technologies on ways to avoid traffic congestion, reduce traffic time, and save on gas and toll fares.
Secondly, vehicle positioning systems (VPS) collect information on real-time traffic conditions through surveillance systems. Hong Kong has installed a number of automatic vehicle identification detectors and CCTV cameras across the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island (Lam, 2001, p. 1002). From this information, traffic controllers can estimate average vehicle speeds at different times of the day and identify which routes are susceptible to traffic congestion. Hence, VPS provide forecasting on traffic conditions by collecting data on past traffic conditions, particularly those during peak hours. Urban traffic controllers can study these forecasts and assess what needs to be done to improve traffic flow.
Lastly, electronic road pricing (ERP) serves as easy-go payment systems that can help restrain commuters from overburdening environmentally sensitive or highly congested areas of the road network without contributing to a significant hassle on their trip experience (Lam, 2001, p. 1002-1003). In Hong Kong, toll collection systems are equipped with tag readers that automatically process the “auto-toll tags” found on most registered vehicles (Lam, 2001, p. 1003). These readers reduce the frequency of vehicular idling that occurs before a tollbooth while facilitating payments electronically. Moreover, ERP provides a mechanism similar to VPS by maintaining a traffic count on the given routes.
Yet, ITS can not significantly reduce traffic congestion unless it is coupled with the public transport system where almost 90% of all daily trip journeys are made. Public transport information systems (PTIS) work to integrate information from public transport operators and determine for the commuter which route option is most efficient based on real-time traffic options (Tam & Lam, 2005, p. 82). As commuters receive this information from their mobile devices or electronic panels installed at junctions, commuters can adjust their travel choices so as to reduce travel time by profiting from the accessibility of public transport. Tam and Lam (2005) found that PTIS would most likely serve commuters with longer travel times, multiple transfers or modes of transportation, and travel schedules that fall during peak hours (p. 88). Nonetheless, this represents a sizable market for effectively reducing the volume of private vehicles.
In short, traffic congestion represents the most realistic approach towards mitigating the environmental and social costs of vehicular air pollution and environmental inequality. Nearly every developed country has invested in ITS, but the government of Hong Kong has realized the unique potential that ITS can play in reducing the frequency of traffic congestion in Hong Kong especially considering the region’s small supply of land. After all, ITS can guide commuters and traffic officials in a way that reduces travel time, facilitates effective traffic management, and controls road usage without expanding road capacity. Nonetheless, transport officials must work to coordinate different parties of the ITS infrastructure and the transport system in Hong Kong. This would reduce the likelihood of the public’s overburdening one ITS application over another. This is advantageous for optimizing the efficiency of the transport infrastructure while bringing frequencies of vehicular air pollution and situations of environmental inequality to a more sustainable and respectable level.