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Ambrose Li

Hong Kong’s rail operator will be fined at least HK$1 million (US$128,400) for a severe service disruption that lasted more than seven hours, while a transport official has pushed back against calls for a review of the penalty mechanism following the delays.
Authorities confirmed the fine on Friday during a panel meeting in the legislature to discuss the disruption to East Rail line services earlier in the week.
Jeny Yeung Mei-chun, a managing director of the MTR Corporation, apologised again on behalf of the company.
A faulty sensor left an engineer’s train sitting stationary on the tracks near Tai Wo MTR station on Wednesday. All southbound and northbound trains passing through the station were required to use the same platform to let passengers alight and board.
Passengers were forced to wait on platforms for up to 24 minutes between services as workers scrambled to carry out repairs.
Yeung said the engineer’s train weighed nearly 80 tonnes. The amount was double the weight of normal passenger trains, making the removal more difficult and extending the delay.
She added the train was inspected monthly, annually and before it was used, with checks showing it suffered no problems. After the incident, the company also contacted the manufacturer, which said it had not encountered such a problem with the train before, she said.
Under the government’s penalty system, the MTR Corp can be fined HK$1 million for disruptions that last between 31 minutes and an hour during non-peak hours.
Kirk Yip Hoi-ying, deputy secretary for transport and logistics, confirmed the recent delay would trigger the fine.
“Preliminarily, the MTR Corporation has to pay out at least HK$1 million as a rebate,” Yip said.

But lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun called on the government to revisit the penalty mechanism and add a separate calculation for disruptions that took longer than an hour to resolve.
He said the move would encourage the rail operator to resume services swiftly.
“Within the seven hours, every single train was delayed,” he said.
Tien noted the present mechanism only incurred a penalty if the longest service delay was more than 30 minutes. But the system did not take into account the time it took for the line to resume normal service.
He said the current calculation was “very unreasonable” as disruptions could last “basically the whole day”.
“While services were still running in this case, so many people were affected because of the delay to every single train. There is no reason to look past this,” Tien added.
Yip said the Service Performance Rebate arrangement had always been in place to determine the penalties.
Under the system, the MTR Corp submits information about a service disruption for the government to verify before officials decide the size of the fine.
Yip said authorities regularly conducted reviews of the mechanism, with the last one in 2023.
“The improvements from the reviews included raising the maximum amount of the MTR Corporation’s penalty to HK$40 million for every serious delay for reasons within its control,” he said. “We’ve already responded to residents’ requests.”
He said authorities would continue to conduct reviews.


The government earlier told the rail operator to conduct a comprehensive inspection and submit an investigation report within one month on the causes of the latest disruption. The MTR Corp must also propose improvement measures.
Yip said a preliminary on-site investigation conducted by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department found that the delays had not been caused by a derailing of the engineer’s train.
Lawmaker Lo Wai-kwok noted the government received two reports on the MTR Corp’s review of its asset management and maintenance regime in mid-2023 following incidents in late 2022 on the Tsuen Wan and Tseung Kwan O lines.
“It can be said that the problems that arose this time are relevant to the reports,” Lo said. “When you investigate the technical aspects of this incident, you should compare them with the two reports to see if you have already rectified the problems they delineated or that not enough was done, causing the incident this time around.”
The latest incident involved the robustness of the company’s risk management and whether it could anticipate problems, he said, noting the single-platform arrangement during the seven hours of delay was very chaotic with services “lagging far behind what they should have been”.
The company operated 1.8 million heavy rail train trips last year, with 155 delays of eight minutes or more declining by about 10 per cent from the 174 recorded the year before, according to the MTR Corp.
The number of delays exceeding 31 minutes fell by 30 per cent year on year to 12 incidents. There were no delays of more than 60 minutes last year.


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Hong Kong transport

Hong Kong’s MTR Corp to be fined at least HK$1 million for 7-hour disruption

An aerial view of the stranded train near Tai Wo MTR station. Photo: Eugene Lee

Jeny Yeung, a managing director of the MTR Corporation, has apologised again on behalf of the company. Photo: Nora Tam

Major MTR disruption triggers calls for penalty system review in Hong Kong

The fault on an engineer’s train occurred near Tai Wo MTR station. Photo: Eugene Lee


The crowd at Tai Wo station on Wednesday during the service disruption. Photo: Facebook/Edward Tang

Train fault causes 7-hour service disruption on Hong Kong’s East Rail line

The fault on an engineer’s train occurred near Tai Wo MTR station. Photo: Eugene Lee

MTR staff are racing to fix the faulty sensor. Photo: Jelly Tse

News

Hong Kong

Transport

Lawmaker calls for review of penalty mechanism to take into account scale of disruptions after passengers suffered delays on East Rail line


Lawmaker calls for review of penalty mechanism to take into account scale of disruptions after passengers suffered delays on East Rail line.


MTR Corporation

Transport and logistics

Legislative Council of Hong Kong