Yip, who is also chairman of Hong Kong's key decision-making body, the Executive Council, and a legislator, said the data could provide valuable insight into the propensity of Hong Kong consumers to choose to travel to mainland China.
“More people are heading north and that is affecting our economy. We have heard that restaurants north of Sha Tin are doing very poorly,” she told the committee.
“Would you ask government economists to analyse what the impact would be? [the trend] “How is the bridge affecting us and how should Hong Kong transform its economy to address that? The bridge should provide a lot of data, including what types of vehicles are coming in and out and at what times.”
The rise in Hong Kong residents spending weekends in mainland China has put further pressure on the city's economy. Retail sales fell 14.7% in April from a year earlier, the second straight monthly decline after a 7% drop in March.
Deputy Secretary-General for Transport and Logistics Edward Mak Chun Yew agreed to work with other ministries and agencies to utilise vehicle data.
He said the cross-border connectivity aims to promote two-way exchanges and benefit the entire Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
The Bay Area is Beijing's plan to link Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in southern China into a high-tech economic hub.
The road travel scheme began accepting applications on June 1 last year, allowing residents to drive into Guangdong via the giant bridge with a permit valid for up to one year.
Officials said the introduction has led to increased traffic on the world's longest sea crossing.
Mak said an average of 11,657 vehicles crossed the bridge in both directions each day last month, with Hong Kong vehicles participating in the scheme accounting for about 36 percent of the total traffic.
Legislator Regina Ip said she had heard “restaurants north of Sha Tin are doing very poorly” as Hong Kongers increasingly head north to spend money. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
Over the Dragon Boat Festival weekend earlier this month, motorists returning from Zhuhai were delayed by long traffic jams on the bridge, including Legislator Gary Chan Hsin-yu, who said he was stuck in traffic for four hours himself.
“From our direct observation, there was absolutely no problem with the bridge's capacity and there was almost no waiting time when returning to the Hong Kong side, which means there was a bottleneck at the end leaving mainland China,” Zhang told the committee.
Mak said one of the reasons for the traffic jams on the Zhuhai side was that one facility handled vehicles bound for both Macau and Hong Kong, and another was that all passengers had to get off the vehicles and walk through the mainland China checkpoint, resulting in significant wait times at drop-off and pick-up points.
“There is nothing we can do as national policy does not allow us to check passengers inside the vehicles. We can only continue to work on solutions under this premise,” he said.
Mak said Zhuhai authorities were working on solutions to add more private vehicle lanes and share real-time information on waiting times.
He noted that statistics from the Hong Kong Immigration Department show that travellers can usually get through checkpoints on the Hong Kong side within 30 minutes, even at peak times.
