 Hey everyone, welcome back to RM Transit. I love explaining transit systems and one of the transit systems that I think is the most interesting and impressive in the world is in Hong Kong with its famously excellent MTR. The MTR is a publicly listed company whose largest shareholder is the Hong Kong government and its system has 10 lines, almost 100 stations, and moves the better part of 5 million people every day, nearly as many as the London Underground. Suffice to say, the system has an international reputation for being possibly the highest quality rapid transit system in existence. But how is the MTR laid out, how does it work, and how does it move so many people? Let's talk about it. If you enjoy this video and want more explainer videos for transit systems around the world from Berlin to Chicago to Singapore, make sure to subscribe and ring the bell. A huge thank you to JR Urban Network for helping with this video. Make sure to go give them a follow on Twitter. To start things off, as always, we first need to get familiar with Hong Kong, before we get familiar with its transit. Hong Kong is a wacky city, it's the kind of environment that keeps geographers up at night. Mountains, peninsulas, islands with developments scattered far and wide. The city's landscape is restrictive, and while this makes some things difficult, it's made the job of mass transit critical. You see, while building highways is relatively easy when you've got lots of open land, things get a lot harder when you start needing to cross huge waterways and build lots of tunnels and bridges. And this is why so many great rapid transit systems exist in cities with severe geographical challenges. Hong Kong Center could be said to be Victoria Harbor, between Kowloon and the dense developments on the northern side of Hong Kong Island. Kowloon itself was historically the site of the city's international airport, but the nearby hillsides and dense and tall housing made the location less than ideal. And so in the 90s, the airport was moved some distance from the city center to a new site built on Phil adjacent to Lantau Island, a task the MTR played a critical role in. Speaking of Lantau Island, this is also the site of Disneyland Hong Kong, which was also built on reclaimed land and was the second Disneyland resort to open in Asia, and of course the MTR again played a role. Now, Hong Kong is actually part of what's known as China's Greater Bay Area, which consists of Macau as well as cities in mainland China like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which have massive metro systems in their own right. This region as a whole has over 50 million residents and is an economic region that rivals many countries. To further connect the region, a massive 55 kilometer bridge was built in recent years connecting Hong Kong to Zhuhai in mainland China and Macau via Lantau Island. In recent years, the express rail link also opened, with a massive new 15 platform underground high speed rail terminus known as West Kowloon Station. This station provides train service and border pre-clearance to mainland China, with trains every 15 minutes to Shenzhen and every 30 minutes to Guangzhou, and with daily services to cities from Beijing to Chongqing, all pre-Covid. You're probably wondering about the rest of the city, and indeed much of the city is entirely undeveloped land in areas known as the new territories. However, sprinkled within are numerous sprouting new towns and villages served by, you guessed it, the MTR, the areas of Tunmun and Yunlong, even play host to its own light rail system. With the layout of Hong Kong and major sights highlighted, let's take a look at how the MTR connects this city. That being said, in many cases the MTR didn't just connect pre-existing urban development, but help create it in the first place. More on that later. As I said before, the MTR of today consists of 10 lines which sprawl out over 170 plus kilometers of track that cross Hong Kong. Like with cities such as Berlin and London, Hong Kong's rail network can be divided into parts roughly along the lines of rolling stock and history. Let's look over the different parts of the network. The first is the lines which comprise the former KCR system, which were brought under the MTR banner in 2007. The Kowloon Canton Railway was a rapid transit network that started with what is today known as the East Rail Line, linking Kowloon with Mainland China with passenger and freight trains. Over the years, the KCR transitioned into a commuter rail and then mass transit system, serving more of Hong Kong's urban areas and the new territories before the merger with the MTR. The KCR's lines were built to mainline rail standards, with larger, faster trains than the rest of the MTR, as well as mainline style AC electrification, and services to less urban and sometimes even fairly low density rural areas. You might notice from pictures these skirts that extend down the sides of trains running on the KCR network. These are designed to minimize noise from the wheel sets on a mostly above ground network that runs close to a lot of homes. The KCR portion of the network today consists of two lines, the first of which is the East Rail Line, which has 16 stations over roughly 45 kilometers of track. The line begins with two branches in the north to border crossings into Shenzhen, both of which also feature connections on the Mainland China side to the Shenzhen metro. From the border, the line sinks its way south, mostly above ground in central Hong Kong, where the new Sha Tinh Decentral Link project, that opened in May 2022, takes the line under Victoria Harbor and to the massive Admiralty Hub on Hong Kong Island. The East Rail Line is in a small group of lines around the world, which move well in excess of a million people every day, and it has a couple other unique features, including trains which feature first-class carriages. Historically, the line also played host to the KTT train, which ran along the East Rail Line into Guangdong, periodically bypassing East Rail Line trains, and with locomotives that formerly belonged to Swiss National Railway Operator SBB, as well as by-level coaches. This connection has been made mostly irrelevant given the new high-speed rail link. The other major line that exists as part of the KCR network is the relatively new Toon Ma Line, which first opened in 2021. This line is a combination of the earlier, separate Ma On Shan and West Rail Lines, which served areas to the east and west of the core, including numerous high-density new towns. The line is 53 kilometers long with 27 stations, starting on the old West Rail Line in Toon Moon, a major residential area in the Western New Territories, before traveling north and east along valleys to other developed areas in these low-lying lands. There have actually been talks in the past about building another connection with the border as a branch of the West Rail Line alignment in this area. When the West Rail Line was originally constructed, it was designed to accommodate intercity trains as well as freight, as had previously been seen on the East Rail Line. These developed areas in the Western New Territories are also served by a light rail system, just called the light rail, that has a total of over 60 stops across numerous different services, which connect the various high-density developments in Toon Moon and Yunlong with the Toon Ma Line. The light rail was originally going to operate with double-decker trams, as seen in other parts of Hong Kong, but that ended up not happening, and its development was quite tumultuous. Unusual for a modern system, the high-floor single-car rolling stock used on the system is all unidirectional, with doors on only one side, meaning the trams require loops to turn around and virtually always use side platforms, as it turns out the original vehicles had designs based on trams deployed in Melbourne. From here, the line runs almost 10 kilometers non-stop, with an over 5 kilometer tunnel, which takes trains under the difficult terrain on the way to central Hong Kong. In central Hong Kong, the line runs south of Victoria Harbor, passing Austin Station, where passengers can connect to high-speed rail on the way, before serving Kowloon and connecting with the East Rail Line at Hong Kong. The line then runs to the north, working its way under the mountains north of Kowloon and to Tai Wai, where a second connection to the East Rail Line is made, before continuing along the old Mount on Shan line, through dense transit-oriented development all the way to Mount on Shan. Outside of the city centre and the tunnels through mountainous areas, a lot of the Toon Ma line is above ground, and I should also say that while the Toon Ma's takeover of multiple lines to form a new line feels novel, this actually isn't at all unprecedented in the history of the MTR. Moving on from the KCR, we have the MTR Urban Lines, which originally developed with the help of British transport consultants in the 60s and 70s. These lines are what I always envision when I think of a mass transit railway, and feel like an elegant and natural extension of a lot of the thinking around rapid transit that happened in places like London over the years and when the MTR was being developed. London is of course a city, which for historical reasons has a close connection to Hong Kong. Even things like runway running on the Mount on Shan line at Tai Wai in order to create a same-direction cross-platform transfer with the East Rail Line remind me of London's Victoria Line, as do the numerous cross-platform transfers on the network as a whole. The urban MTR lines in many ways feel similar to traditional rapid transit, with lower top speeds and 1500 volt DC overhead power. But unique features like train cars with 10 doors were very unusual when they were first adopted, and since have been rolled out across the MTR network and thanks to its influence systems across mainland China. The combination of eight car long trains and individual train cars with so many doors gives the MTR's urban lines massive capacity. The first of the urban MTR lines is the Kun Tong line, which has 17 stations over 17.5 kilometers of track and travels from Victoria Harbour around Kowloon, before heading east to Kun Tong and beyond. The line features connections to the Toon Ma Line at Homan Tin and Diamond Hill, and a connection to the East Rail Line at Kowloon Tong. A lot of the Kun Tong line is underground, though it does pop above ground to run elevated through the forest of high-rises on the east side of Kowloon Bay. The Toon Wan Line is 28 kilometers long with 24 stops. The line runs from Central on Hong Kong Island to the Major Admiralty Hub, and then underground across Victoria Harbour to a section of three consecutive shared stations with the Kun Tong line, which originally enabled a different routing of lines overall. These stations provide what is perhaps the ultimate cross-platform interchange experience, which can likely be said to have influenced the cross-platform transfer pair at the center of the Singapore MRT as well. At Prince Edward, passengers can switch lines and directions, whereas at Mong Kok, passengers can switch lines but continue in the same direction. North of the three stations' shared section, the Toon Wan Line continues north-northwest, swinging west to the interchange with the Toon Ma Line at May Fu, before the line snakes the rest of the way to Toon Wan, with substantial above-ground sections as with the Kun Tong Line. The next line is the Island Line, which runs 19 kilometers along the northern side of Hong Kong Island, with 18 different stations. The Island Line connects the Toon Wan Line at Central and the Toon Wan and East Rail Line at Admiralty, with a direction changing cross-platform transfer to the Toon Wan Line. A lot of the Island Line is built underground through the incredibly dense development on the northern side of Hong Kong Island, though the line does pop above ground in the east. The central portions of the Island Line are closely parallel to the Hong Kong tramways, the only large-scale double-decker tram system in the world. While the trams are absolutely worth checking out while in Hong Kong, their large numbers, numerous stops, and surface alignment make them far slower than the Island Line. That being said, to compensate fares are less expensive. Roughly equidistant between Admiralty and Central is the northern terminus of the Peak Tram, an incredibly popular tourist attraction which connects from central Hong Kong up to near Victoria Peak. The line, which opened in 1888, was the first funicular in Asia. Also connecting at Admiralty Station Deep Underground is the 7.5 km five-stop South Island Line to the south of Hong Kong Island, with connections to the famous Ocean Park Amusement Park and numerous new high-density development sites. The South Island Line runs short but high-capacity three-car trains, which are fully automated, and is elevated in a sound dampening tube after passing under the mountains at the center of the Island. Sound barriers are quite common on elevated sections of the MTR given the frequent nearby hyper-dense development, but the integrated tube on the South Island Line is probably the most attractive of all of them. The final urban MTR Line is the 8 station, 12.5 km Tung Kuan O Line. This line runs from Hong Kong Island east across Victoria Harbor to the new town of Tung Kuan O where the line branches, with one branch to the north and one to the south to Lohas Park, a giant enclosed train depot with massive tower developments on top, a fairly common feature seen in multiple locations across Hong Kong. The line connects at two stations with the Kun Tong Line, once again providing paired-up cross-platform transfers, with Yao Tong allowing direction changing, and Tieu Cong Lung allowing same-direction transfers. The line also enables transfers to the Island Line at North Point and Quarry Bay, with the same-direction cross-platform transfer at North Point being built after the opening of the original line to help relieve crowding and shorten the long interchange seen at Quarry Bay. The final part of the MTR network to discuss is the airport line. These were created as part of the creation of the new Hong Kong airport on Lantau Island in the 90s by the MTR itself. However, the need for high speeds of over 130 kilometers per hour to cross the roughly 30 kilometer distance between Central Station and Central Hong Kong, and the new airport in roughly 30 minutes necessitated a different train standard incompatible with the urban lines. The Tung Chung Line and the Airport Express share tracks for most of their length beginning at Hong Kong Station, a satellite of Central Station where connection can be made to the Island Line and Tsuen Wan Line. From here, the lines cross under Victoria Harbour to Kowloon Station, a short walk from the West Kowloon High Speed Rail Terminal. Both Hong Kong and Kowloon stations feature massive integrated malls and high-rise developments. With the second and first tallest buildings in Hong Kong, the 460-meter-tall 2-International Finance Center, and the 484-meter-tall International Commerce Center. From here, the lines pop above, and below ground and parallel an expressway, connecting to the Tung Ma Line at Ma Cheong and the Tsuen Wan Line at Lai King Station, which features a retrofitted cross-platform transfer between the Tung Chung Line and the Tsuen Wan Line. Lai King is also an interesting place to observe one of the most underappreciated peculiarities on the entire MTR network. A set of stubs which were put in place so that a branch could potentially be built to the new territories where the West Rail Line and now Western section of the Tsuen Ma Line runs. This is because historically before the merger of the KCR and MTR, the companies competed for the right to build new extensions. Continuing west from Lai King, the lines cross the Rambler Channel on a very cool double-deck quad-track rail bridge before pulling into Tsing Yi Station. The portion of the line all the way from here back to Kowloon Station is quad-track, with the airport express bypassing all intermediate stations. West of Tsing Yi, the line narrows the two tracks and crosses some pretty dramatic bridges to arrive at Lantau Island. Travelling along the north of the island, the line widens to four tracks at Sunny Bay Station, to allow airport express trains to overtake Tung Chung Line trains, before the line narrows back down to two tracks to travel to just east of Tung Chung, which is served by the Tung Chung Line, while the airport express cuts to the north to serve the airport and Asia World Expo stations. The vast majority of the western extents of the lines run above ground and while most of the corridor was meant to be quad-tracked, value engineering at the last moment had these sections cut back, meaning delays on one line do still impact the other. Fortunately, speed is not the only thing which distinguishes the airport express service. For one, passengers at Kowloon and Hong Kong Station can check their bags at the station, which then get loaded onto special containers on the airport express trains which feature a luggage car, allowing passengers to ride to the airport without their bags and stress-free. The trains themselves are also more spacious, with a commuter seating layout, racks for smaller bags, and a two-door per-car layout that matches up with the alternating doors on the five-car trains used on the Tung Chung Line, allowing both to share platforms with platform screen doors when needed. The idea of in-town check-in has since been implemented in other cities, sometimes with direct guidance from the MTR. The final line on the MTR network is a bit of an oddball, the Disneyland Resort Line. This line connects between Sunny Bay Station and Hong Kong Disneyland, and was the first line on the network to feature driverless trains. The refitted M trains, originally used on the urban lines but shortened and heavily modified for the service to Disneyland, with four cars per train and three doors per side per car, and a new livery, as well as Disney Touches seen on the handholds and the uniquely shaped windows. This gives us the MTR of today, an impressive network of ten lines which is among the most intensively used in the world. The MTR's small number of stations is quite deceptive, as the system has a very large number of interchanges and cross-platform transfers, and a lot of track miles thanks to the very long distances between stops on the Tung Ma, East Rail Line, and airport routes. While most metro systems have a handful of stations which see truly heavy passenger traffic, on the MTR lots of stations see huge passenger numbers. Of course, the future of the MTR isn't static, a number of projects are regularly discussed, and will likely be built in the future. For one, the Tung Ma Line will be extended south to the waterfront to a new station called Tung Man South. The Tung Chung Line is also set to be extended west with a new station known as Tung Chung West, and a new infill station known as Tung Chung East to also be added. These plans are set to move forward in the near future. There are also plans for a new East Kowloon Line, which would connect between Diamond Hill on the Tung Man Kun Tung lines, and Po Lam on the Tung Kwan O Line. On Hong Kong Island, there's been talk of a new South Island Line West, which would be a new independent line wrapping around the west of the island, connecting to the island line at HKU and to the South Island Line. There's also discussion of extending the Tung Chung Line East one stop, and potentially extending the line even further to the east, or the Tung Kwan O Line to the west to provide a new parallel relief line for the island line on the north side of Hong Kong Island. Beyond just the network it's created, the MTR and Hong Kong's transit have a number of interesting elements. For one, as with most modern systems, nearly the entire MTR network already features platform screen doors or gates, and the East Rail Line is the only line without them, with them being retrofitted right as we speak. The Octopus smart card system used for transit and convenience payments across the city was also one of the world's first transit smart cards, which allowed for a single fare medium which could be used across Hong Kong's many transport operators, from the extensive bus networks serving the city's roads and motorways to the iconic Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor, but probably most notably between the MTR and KCR, who were independent and featured different fare systems when Octopus was first introduced. The MTR is also famous for its rail plus property model, which has it create massive new developments from office to residences to giant malls seamlessly integrated with its station facilities. These major developments help fund the system, but are largely made possible because of the unusual way land ownership and development is controlled in Hong Kong. Nonetheless, the MTR has created what are likely the world's greatest transit oriented developments all over the city, forever stamping its iconic logo all over this world financial hub. The MTR is also helped by its reputation for seamless travel, helped by Octopus, the numerous cross platform transfers and its dense network of lines, as well as its impressive reliability and efficiency, which includes doing things like shutting off some redundant escalators at stations during less busy hours to save energy. This highly regarded international reputation has led to the MTR being contracted to run systems in other parts of the world, like Sydney, Melbourne, London and Stockholm, as well as consult other systems perhaps most notably in mainland China. All in all, the MTR is a truly impressive system and one of the greatest transit systems in the world. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.