Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTR) has extended service hours across most lines by up to 90 minutes between 25 and 27 September to accommodate the surge of revelers and tourists for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Last trains on the Island, Tseung Kwan O, Kwun Tong and Tsuen Wan lines now depart after 1 or 2 a.m., while Light Rail services in the north-western New Territories are also running later than usual. The Hong Kong Police Force has simultaneously rolled out phased road closures in Causeway Bay, Tai Hang, Aberdeen and Pok Fu Lam to make way for the city’s famed fire-dragon dances and pedestrian zones. Forty-four franchised bus routes and 14 green-minibus services have been diverted; real-time updates are available via the HKeMobility app and the Transport Department’s X (formerly Twitter) feed. Employers with night-shift staff or customer events should revise ground-transport allowances and remind workers to budget extra travel time. From a risk-management standpoint, the staggered approach mirrors lessons learned during last year’s National Day Golden Week, when ad-hoc closures stranded hundreds of visitors. MTR has deployed additional crowd-control staff and mobile Customer Service Assistants at interchange stations such as Admiralty and Kowloon Tong, where transfer volumes are expected to exceed 250,000 passengers per hour at peak. Hotel concierges and destination-management companies are advising group travellers to use Octopus cards for seamless transfers and to avoid taxi zones near Victoria Park after 6 p.m. Corporate mobility teams organising client dinners in affected districts should pre-book coaches with police permits or shift events to Kowloon West, which remains largely unaffected. The extended hours also present an opportunity: outbound passengers on late-evening Cathay and Greater Bay Airlines flights can now connect directly from Central Station’s Airport Express departures until almost 1 a.m., reducing reliance on ride-hailing amid surge pricing. Businesses should update their traveller-information platforms accordingly.
Source: RTHK
