New Driverless Bus Program Planned for Hong Kong Airport

A major new self-driving bus project has been announced for Hong Kong.

The service, which has been announced by Hong Kong’s Airport Authority, will link the 11 Skies entertainment complex – located in Skycity at Terminal 2 at the airport – with the local checkpoint of the bridge which links Hong Kong with the mainland city of Zhuhai and Macau.

While the length of the journey in itself is relatively modest at 2,788 feet and will take only three minutes, it’s the scale of the program that is particularly impressive. 

With 26 buses set to be in use when the service launches at the end of 2025, it’s believed it will constitute the largest fleet of autonomous shuttles being used concurrently anywhere in the world.

The program was announced by Steven Yiu Siu-chung, executive director of the Airport Authority, who said a prototype of the 16-seat autonomous vehicle (AV) has already been produced.

The shuttles will operate on Airportcity Link, a dedicated bridge for vehicles with a pedestrian walkway that is being developed at a cost of nearly $13 billion. 

At a press conference held to publicize the initiative, Yiu said: “After passengers finish shopping, they can take these shuttles back to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge port and then choose their preferred mode of transportation to travel to Macau or Zhuhai.

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“We aim to transport 500 people per hour in one direction in the initial phase, with plans to increase this number to 1,000, resulting in a total of 2,000 in both directions.”

The buses’ autonomous capability is enabled by tech that includes external surveillance cameras and four GPS systems, plus there’s also remote monitoring of progress allowing staff to intervene as and when required. Each bus can carry 16 people, and the top speed is 24 mph.

Once launched, the service is earmarked for swift expansion, with plans to extend the route to the nearby area of Tung Chung by 2028.

Yiu continued: “[By 2028] we anticipate being able to transport around 5,000 individuals per hour in one direction, gradually ramping up to approximately 8,000.” It is envisaged 100 buses could be in operation by this stage.

No fares for any element of the service have yet been determined.

Hong Kong Airport has long been a global leader in terms of its use of automated transportation.

In 2019 it started to use driverless baggage tractors and complemented this with the addition of autonomous cargo tractors and patrol vehicles two years later. In 2023, self-driving buses for use by staff in restricted areas were introduced, and plans for a service for passengers were announced.