New Lantao Bus
The New Lantao Bus Company (1973) Limited (新大嶼山巴士(1973)有限公司) – known as New Lantao Bus, or NLB – is a franchised
company operating in .
NLB was formed in
through the merger of three bus companies operated by residents of , and became the third franchised bus company on
In January
NLB became a subsidiary of Kwoon Chung Bus Holdings Limited, a company now partly owned by NWS Holdings Limited, which is also the parent company of , , and . All four transport operators are thus associated.
NLB's franchise was extended on 1 April
to run until
Before the construction of
New Town, almost all of NLB's routes terminated at . During that time – when there were no major towns on the island – most of the company's routes aimed to connect the smaller villages to the ferry at Mui Wo. Currently, however, most routes terminate at Tung Chung and many of those that formerly terminated at Mui Wo have been discontinued.
The major service area of the company is , while it is the only bus company in the southern part of the Island. It now operates 11 regular routes , 3 overnight routes, 1 school-day only route, 1 holiday-only route, 1 airport route and 1 special route on Lantau Island, carrying an average of 25,000 passengers daily in 2002.
Most of the routes terminates at
and , where there are
respectively to connect the city. Some routes are short-haul routes within the
new town. NLB operates a holiday route numbered 1R, running from
with 8 departures on Sundays and public holidays.
In 2007, the
opened, providing a 4th road border crossing with mainland . NLB won the right to operate a cross-border bus route B2, which runs from
to the border checkpoint at .
Major areas serviced by NLB:
for the list of NLB routes.
The current fleet comprises 78 single-deck buses. A majority of the single-deck buses operated by New Lantao Bus are -built
buses with local bodywork.
New Lantao Bus is the only franchise bus operator in Hong Kong operating
buses. These buses are tailor-made for the rough road conditions on southern part of . Most of the vehicles are like (tourist) coaches rather than the standard buses one would find in an urban area, except for the newer buses in the
All of them are of high floor design, fitted with very powerful engine. Like most buses in Hong Kong, all of them are fitted with air-conditioning system. The air-conditioning system of most buses in Hong Kong is powered by the main engine. But the
buses of New Lantao Bus are fitted with a separate engine, solely for powering the air-conditioning system. This allows the main engine to operate on its full power when climbing up steep slopes on southern part of .
Riding on these buses is now more comfortable than 30 years ago, but there are still disadvantages about these buses. Most of the seats are arranged in 3+2 configuration, enabling most of the passengers can find a seat on board. But this also makes the corridor narrow and causing difficulties for passengers to alight the bus, especially in intermediate stops. In addition, their high floor design makes the access of wheelchair impossible. They are absolutely not suitable for operating on city bus routes. However, the road conditions on southern part of
are too rough and they seemed to be the only possible solution.
After the development of
new town in 1998, New Lantao Bus gained operation of an airport bus route A35, connecting
in southern part of
in the northern part. New Lantao Bus ordered three specially built
() buses from , . These buses were fitted with 215hp engine and 6-speed manual transmission, which are very different from the
operating in most part of the world. However, their SLF design was proved to be not suitable to operate in southern part of .
In the mean time, New Lantao Bus also started to operate new bus routes solely serving the northern part of .
buses, being the main bus model operated by New Lantao Bus at that time, were sent to serve these routes. As the road conditions on the northern part are much better than those on the southern part, the buses can handle these new routes without a single problem mechanically. But their "special" configuration ended up receiving a large number of complaints from the residents, asking New Lantao Bus to send a proper bus on these routes.
New Lantao Bus finally conceded to allocate the
only on the northern part of
and ordered some new
buses to serve the airport route A35. For buses to be used to serve the airport, in order to increase the comfort level, these new
buses were fitted with luggage racks and the seat configuration was in 2+2, allowing a wider corridor for passenger access. These buses can be seen used on bus route 2 to Ngong Ping and sometimes on route 3M to Tung Chung New Town.
As the number of residents in
keep increasing, New Lantao Bus soon found out that the 3
were not capable to handle the demand of the new routes. New Lantao Bus ordered 9 NL263 () 12-metre single-deck buses from , . Also, it acquired 5 second-hand
NL262 () 12-metre single-deck buses from . Otherwise, a double-deck
() was borrowed from Kwoon Chung, which serving on route 37 and 38 during the rush hour.
From the middle of March 2006 NLB has now scrapped the last of its Isuzu MT112L buses (ILS45-74) and became a fully air conditioned bus company. These buses will follow the previous model Isuzu MT112K buses (ILS6-44) which were scrapped a year and a half earlier.
Starting from
, it offers one route from
through . This is the first time for this company that both terminals do not reside in Lantau. The company reallocated all its MAN NL263 buses from route 37, 38 to this cross-boundary route.
with Plaxton Pointer bodies
NL263 12-metre single-deck buses
with Berkhof Body
MT112L buses (ILS45-74)
MT112K buses (ILS6-44)
double-deckers
B2 route information
Yahoo! News (Chinese only). Retrieved on ,
Categories: }