The strong pressure exerted on private vehicle owners, through a series of surprise measures, fines and parking fee increases has proved effective, as the ‘total number of licensed motor vehicles dropped by 1.9 per cent year-on-year to 243,570’ at the end of June, figures from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed.
However, vehicle registrations increased in the second quarter of the year by 27.1 per cent year-on-year to 3,494. The first six months of the year pointed to an increase of 6.0 per cent year-on-year to 7,256 vehicles.
The number of victims of traffic accidents in the second quarter of 2017 in the city totalled 1,141 – 6 per cent higher than a year before. There were 3,630 cases of traffic accidents in the period, up by 2.2 per cent year-on-year, official data indicated yesterday. However, ‘in the first half year of 2017, the number of traffic accidents fell by 2.9 per cent year-on-year to 7,208 cases.’
The office also stated that ‘cross-border vehicle traffic totalled 1,198,788 trips in the second quarter of 2017, down by 7.1 per cent year-on-year. In the first half year of 2017, cross-border vehicle traffic decreased by 6.9 per cent year-on-year to 2,374,139 trips.’
Far from the road
Ferry movements in the first half of the year went up by 1.7 per cent to 69,252 trips, according to the data.
‘Commercial flight movements at the Macao International Airport totalled 13,474 in the second quarter of 2017, edging down by 0.1 per cent year-on-year.’ In the first half of 2017, commercial flight movements decreased by 3 per cent year-on-year to 26,381, with movements to and from the Mainland and the Republic of Korea increasing by 1.5 per cent and 73.7 per cent, respectively.
The number of helicopter flights to the Mainland and Hong Kong grew 26.7 per cent to 6,091 in the first half of the year.
Cargo
In the first half of the year, the gross weight of seaborne containerized cargo fell by 11.9 per cent year-on-year, while the gross weight of containerized cargo by land decreased by 30.6 per cent year-on-year to 8,449 tonnes, of which cargo through the Cotai Checkpoint (8,013 tonnes) accounted for 94.8 per cent, the DSEC figures showed.
The Macao International Airport handled 17,331 tonnes of air cargo in the first half of the year, increasing by 14.6 per cent year-on-year.
Telco talks
The DSEC added that ‘at the end of June 2017, the number of fixed-line telephone subscribers decreased by 5.2 per cent year-on-year to 135,263. The number of mobile phone subscribers rose by 7.7 per cent to 2,018,665,’ while ‘internet subscribers increased by 7.3 per cent year-on-year to 376,602.’
‘In the second quarter of 2017, the cumulative duration of internet usage reached 310 million hours, up by 5.5 per cent year-on-year, and the duration went up by 4.8 per cent to 610 million hours in the first half year of 2017,’ the DSEC informed.
