16.2 Passengers, Public Transport & Taxi Operating Areas

Quick Answer: Urban (red) taxis serve all Hong Kong except the closed roads of Lantau, including Tung Chung Road. NT (green) taxis serve most of the New Territories except Tsuen Wan, Sha Tin, Tseung Kwan O and Lantau. Lantau (blue) taxis serve only Lantau and Chek Lap Kok, including the airport. Green minibuses = green roof, scheduled; red minibuses = red roof, non-scheduled.

The Chapter Every Taxi Candidate Underestimates

Chapter 3 of the Road Users' Code is written for passengers, so candidates skim it. That is a mistake for two reasons. First, Part B questions come from the whole Code and this chapter is compact and fact-dense — ideal question material. Second, it is where the Code sets out which taxi may go where, which is not a passenger nicety but the boundary of your future licence.

Taxi Operating Areas: The Rule That Defines Your Job

Hong Kong runs three general taxi types, distinguished by colour and by permitted operating area.

The New Territories taxi exceptions

NT taxis carry two published carve-outs that are exactly the kind of detail examiners like:

• They are permitted to provide service between the Air Passenger Terminals of Hong Kong International Airport and certain districts in the New Territories.
• They cannot take a passenger to urban destinations except a number of specified major infrastructures and railway stations via designated routes.

To help drivers stay inside those limits, traffic signs reading 'End of permitted area for NT taxis' are erected at appropriate road junctions. If you sit the test as an NT taxi candidate, that sign is your legal boundary marker, not a suggestion.

Why this connects to your Part A duties

Chapter 7 of this guide taught that a driver must not without reasonable excuse refuse a hire or refuse to drive to the place indicated — both 10-point TDOP offences. Operating area is precisely the kind of reasonable excuse that makes a refusal lawful: an NT taxi declining a fare into Tsuen Wan is not refusing a hire unlawfully, it is obeying its permitted area. Knowing the boundary is how you tell a lawful refusal from a points-bearing one.

The Rest of Hong Kong's Public Transport, as the Code Describes It

Two minibus details are worth isolating. Green minibuses may be hailed or requested to stop where the driver is permitted to do so, and on some roads with 'No stopping' zones the driver may still be permitted to stop. Red minibuses face 'No stopping' zones that apply only to public light buses, in addition to the stopping restrictions applying to all vehicles — a useful reminder that restriction signs are not always universal.

Passenger Conduct Rules That Become Questions

The Code's bus rules are the model for tram and minibus behaviour too. The examinable ones:

• Do not get on or off a bus unless it is standing at a bus stop
• Queue, within railings or markings where provided, without blocking the pavement or forcing others onto the roadway
• Give wheelchair users and persons with disabilities priority in boarding
• Let passengers get off first where there is no separate entrance and exit
• Do not stand on the upper deck, at the staircase, or beyond the yellow line near the entrance or exit
• Must not talk to or distract the driver
• Do not interfere with the emergency exit door except in an emergency
• Use the bell-push in good time; do not alight while the door is opening or closing
• Offer priority seats to the elderly, persons with disabilities, pregnant women and people travelling with young children

The alighting rule that saves lives

After getting off a bus and wanting to cross the road, the Code is emphatic: wait until the bus has moved off and you have a clear view in both directions. If the bus remains at the stop, cross well away from it — never in front of or at the rear of the bus.

For a taxi driver, this is the single most useful sentence in Chapter 3. Every stationary bus is a screen, and the Code tells you exactly where the pedestrian who steps out from behind it was told not to be. Treat a stopped bus as an opaque wall with people behind it and pass it at a speed that survives being wrong.

Reaching a tram stop

Tram passengers follow the bus advice with one addition: tram stops sit on islands in the roadway, so passengers must use the Road Crossing Code (Section 16.1) to reach the island and again to return to the pavement after alighting. Tram-line districts on Hong Kong Island are therefore places where pedestrians are lawfully standing in the middle of the road.

Section Takeaways

1. Red = all Hong Kong except Lantau closed roads (incl. Tung Chung Road); green = most NT except Tsuen Wan, Sha Tin, Tseung Kwan O, Lantau; blue = Lantau and Chek Lap Kok only.
2. NT taxis get airport-to-NT service rights and limited urban access to specified infrastructure and railway stations via designated routes; 'End of permitted area for NT taxis' signs mark the edge.
3. Green minibus = green roof, scheduled; red minibus = red roof, non-scheduled.
4. Trams: Kennedy Town to Shau Kei Wan; light rail: Tuen Mun and Yuen Long, fenced reserves, entry prohibited.
5. Passengers must never cross in front of or behind a stationary bus — so drivers must never assume the road beside one is empty.