Hong Kong authorities should work with their mainland counterparts to reduce severe traffic jams on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, according to a lawmaker who was stuck for four hours at the border crossing during the long weekend.

Transport sector lawmaker Gary Zhang Xinyu on Wednesday urged Hong Kong authorities to work with the Macau and mainland governments ramp up immigration clearance capacities at the border to improve traffic flow and avoid the bottleneck travellers were caught in over the Dragon Boat Festival weekend.

According to figures from the Immigration Department, 83,851 people – including nearly 74,000 Hong Kong residents – entered the city via the mega bridge on Monday, the last day of the long weekend.

Travellers made a total of 345,539 trips across the bridge from Saturday to Monday, its highest usage during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday period since it opened in 2018.

Zhang said he was stuck in a jam for four hours at the Zhuhai border on Monday evening, a peak period when many Hongkongers returned to the city after spending the long weekend on the mainland.

“The cross-border bridge involves the operation of three governments, so they should have a robust communication mechanism. Hong Kong authorities should make a government-to-government contact with the mainland authorities to solve the issue,” he told a radio show.

Zhang said the Zhuhai border crossing faced a capacity problem with only 20 lanes in operation, clearing only 300 to 400 cars an hour, when the bridge was designed to carry 4,000 cars an hour.

“Since we know that the immigration staff cannot manage such a huge demand during this short period of time, maybe the authorities can consider using an appointment system to stagger the numbers of cars,” he said.

Zhang added that cargo, private cars and shuttle buses from Zhuhai heading to both Macau and Hong Kong used the same lanes, and suggested authorities divert those travelling between Macau and Zhuhai to use the Hengqin port instead.

“I understand that authorities are working to expand the immigration capacity at the Zhuhai side but that is a midterm project,” he said.

“In the meantime, they should improve efficiency. For example, doing pre-clearance since they have information of the drivers and the vehicle on their database.”

Currently, passengers have to alight from their vehicles to clear immigration when exiting Zhuhai, but may remain in their vehicles when entering Hong Kong.

Ringo Lee Yiu-pui, honorary life president of the Hong Kong, China Automobile Association, said the alighting and boarding of passengers already caused bottlenecks on ordinary weekends, but worsened during the holiday season.

“Authorities should use facial recognition technology or X-ray so passengers can stay in their cars, to speed up the immigration clearance process,” he told the same radio show.

In the short term, Lee suggested that authorities increase the number of drop-off and boarding points for passengers to increase efficiency, and also provide amenities to reduce travellers’ discomfort.

“They should add portable toilets for those who are stuck in traffic for hours,” he said.

The Post has reached out to the Transport and Logistics Bureau for comment.