Hong Kong’s MTR warns passengers to use emergency exits only as last resort
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation (MTRC) and a legislator have urged passengers only to use emergency exits as a last resort after about 20 people climbed down onto the tracks following a brief delay in the carriage doors opening.
The incident sparked an hour-long disruption to services on the Island Line on Monday evening, when some passengers left their carriage minutes after the doors failed to open by activating the train’s emergency ramp.
“The Corporation will review the cause and handling of the case as well as strengthen publicity and education on related procedures, while also ensuring passengers receive updates on train service information in different situations,” the MTRC said in a statement on Tuesday.
Hour-long disruption
The operator cautioned passengers against the “improper use of emergency equipment that affects passengers and train services.” The statement did not say whether the passengers had been in immediate danger when they walked onto the track.
The MTRC said the doors on a Kennedy Town-bound train failed to open automatically when it arrived at Wan Chai Station at 8.04 pm on Monday.
The driver made a report to the control centre, after which a public announcement was made to inform passengers that the train doors would “open a while later.”
But some passengers opened the emergency ramp at the rear of the train. The driver “immediately made an announcement… reminding passengers not to open any train door themselves, followed by another announcement reminding passengers not to enter the tracks.”
Staff of the train company saw that passengers had left the train and brought them back onto the platform through an emergency escape door. Minutes after the train arrived at the platform, the train and platform doors both opened, and the remaining passengers left the train.
Services restarted an hour later at 9.04 pm.
Emergency exit a last resort
Speaking on an RTHK program on Tuesday, lawmaker Gary Zhang Xinyu — a former MTR engineer — said exiting the train in such a way was dangerous, as passengers were not familiar with the situation in badly-lit tunnels.
Under normal circumstances, “unless the conditions inside the train are dangerous, or if the power is out, with no lights or air-conditioning, walking onto the rails is the most undesirable case, or the last resort,” Zhang said. The MTRC should step up education efforts to warn passengers against opening the emergency doors, he added.
In another incident last November, some 150 passengers left an MTR train through the tunnel after it derailed and had two sets of doors ripped off its side. MTRC’s operations director Tony Lee said at the time that the evacuation was “totally undesirable.”
The operator saw eight service disruptions that lasted more than 31 minutes last year. Service disruptions that last between 31 minutes and an hour necessitate a HK$1 million fine. For a two-hour disruption, the penalty is HK$2 million, while it is HK$3 million for a three-hour disruption, and HK$5 million for a four-hour disruption.
Each additional hour for disruptions lasting more than four hours will cost HK$2.5 million, with the maximum fine capped at HK$25 million.
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