Traffic and road safety in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s subway system is a people-moving marvel. Every day it racks up 5.8 million rides, about half of all trips made daily on public transport in the city of 7 million people. It’s more profitable than any other subway system in the world, and literally 99.9% of its trains run on time. When cities build a modern train network, Hong Kong is often where they send people on a pilgrimage. (Not to take a dig at New York City, again, but in comparison New York’s subway trains are on time about 60% of the time.) But a six-hour service disruption on Tuesday has shaken the Hong Kong subway operator’s reputation and thrown all these superlatives into question. It was done by the computers Tony L

If the world’s best train system is in chaos, what hope is there for everyone else? Hong Kong has one of the most lauded public transit systems in the world, boasting a 99.99% on-time rating. But on Tuesday morning, it was hit by crippling delays throughout the entire city. Some trains had more than one-hour delays because of signalling failure. This led to packed stations full of angry passengers who were told to use other forms of public transport like buses or trams. But even those had long lines as commuters rushed to get to work on time. The term “signal problems” is a painfully common phrase heard by commuters in megacities like New York, which has an aging subway system. Signal prob