A total of 114 trains are expected to run on the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-speed Railway on peak days during the initial stages after rail services begin on the section.
Chan Fan, secretary for transport and housing of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government, made the disclosure in Beijing on Monday. He was in Beijing to meet with officials of China Railway Corp. to discuss issues related to the Hong Kong section’s train frequency, stops, financial arrangements and more.
Chan said they made detailed assessments of passenger flow as well as ticketing and non-ticketing revenues and that the negotiations were going smoothly. Chan also expressed his hope that the railway authority on the mainland would do its best to provide convenience for Hong Kong residents in terms of self-service ticket purchasing.
Work on the Hong Kong section started in April 2010 and the link is scheduled to open in the third quarter of next year.
On Nov. 15, the Legislative Council (LegCo) of the HKSAR passed a non-binding motion supporting the HKSAR Government’s co-location arrangement at the cross-border railway station in West Kowloon, which will allow passengers of cross-border trains one-stop boundary control.
To implement the co-location arrangement, the mainland and the HKSAR need to first reach a cooperation arrangement, which will be endorsed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. After the congress’s endorsement, the HKSAR needs to implement it through the enactment of local legislation.
On Nov. 18, a cooperation arrangement was signed between the mainland and the HKSAR on the co-location arrangement, marking the first step by the two sides in jointly proceeding with the relevant work for implementing the clearance procedures of the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-speed Railway.
