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Ombudsman Chan announces completion of investigation into Transport Department
On 5 September 2024, the Ombudsman, Mr Jack Chan, announced the completion of a direct investigation operation into the arrangements for driving tests by the Transport Department (TD), and made 12 major recommendations to the Department.
In recent years, there has been an increasing public demand for driving tests and the average waiting time of driving tests is very long. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the TD suspended the written tests and road tests on six occasions, resulting in a backlog of driving test applications. In November 2022, the waiting time for road tests for private cars and light goods vehicles had once been more than 340 days.
On the other hand, the Office of The Ombudsman’s investigation found a rising number of appeals against road test results in recent years. The number of appeals had doubled from 192 cases in 2017 to 380 cases in 2023, reflecting an increase in the public’s discontent with the TD’s road test arrangements.
The Office also noticed that since the pandemic ended, the TD had recruited more Driving Examiners (DEs) and made use of technology to increase road test output. The waiting time for road tests for private cars and light goods vehicles has now shrunk to around 200 days.
While recognising the efforts made by the Department, the Office considers that there is still room for improvement in the arrangements for driving tests.
Mr Chan said, “In addition to proactively exploring how to increase road test output by redeploying manpower resources and designating new test venues, the TD should also review the Duty Reporting Arrangement. Before our investigation, DEs are required to arrive at the TD Headquarters in Ho Man Tin, Kowloon, every day for ballot-drawing to determine the test centres they are responsible for, and then proceed to the various driving test centres to discharge their duties. We are pleased to learn that in response to our investigation, the TD has since mid-June this year implemented the Direct Reporting Arrangement on a trial basis at four driving test centres. We recommend that the TD review the Arrangement. If the trial is positively received, the Department should proactively study the feasibility of extending the Arrangement to other driving test centres. It is estimated that if the Direct Reporting Arrangement is implemented, about 5,500 additional road tests for non-commercial vehicles can be conducted each year, meaning that an additional 5,500 candidates can be benefited. We consider that this recommendation, which does not require additional manpower, man hour or test venues but only a change of the reporting arrangement for the DEs, is worth pursuing.
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Source: The Office of the Ombudsman, Hong Kong, China
