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Members of the Transport Advisory Committee (TAC) were updated on the progress of implementing the recommendations of the Task Force of Emergency Transport Coordination at its meeting today (March 14).
Ms Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, Chairman of the TAC said, "We are pleased to note that the Government has made good progress in implementing various recommendations to refine and align the crisis management arrangements, enhance communication and coordination both within and between departments, harness technologies for better traffic management, and take all possible steps to disseminate traffic information to the public in a timely manner."
Members noted that guidelines had been provided to streamline all stages of incident management. Other relevant departments had reviewed their internal guidelines to enhance internal and inter-departmental communication. A whole range of contingency plans were also drawn up to facilitate departments in handling different scenarios.
The Transport Department (TD) had improved the facilities of the Emergency Transport Coordination Centre, including putting in place a web-based incident management communication system for TD and other departments, a digitised incident map system and a portal for traffic information dissemination. They would strengthen TD's capability in handling traffic incidents.
TD also enhanced the contents of traffic messages and established many different channels for timely dissemination of information such as an Interactive Voice Response System to provide real-time traffic information to the public. The system will be re-activated in the case of planned events with a major traffic impact.
In fact, many of the measures, like the contingency plans, the enhanced communication system and the Interactive Voice Response System, were deployed during the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization and they had proved to be effective.
In addition, TD will commission a study later in the year to examine the feasibility of adopting various advanced technologies recommended by the Task Force to enhance TD's capability in incident management. Depending on the outcome of the study, TD will decide whether and how to apply these technologies.
"We hope that all relevant departments will continue their efforts in improving emergency transport coordination," Ms Cheng added.
The Task Force, which was appointed by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works following the serious traffic congestion in Kowloon on May 9, 2005, submitted a report in July 2005. The report mapped out 56 recommendations to enhance emergency transport coordination.
Ends/Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Issued at HKT 19:04
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