on 16 Oct morning rush hours, an unprecedented four lines – the Island line, Tsuen Wan line, Kwun Tong line and Tseung Kwan O line – were hit by severe delays. The MTR called on commuters to use other forms of public transport after journey times were extended by 40 minutes on some of the routes. Speaking to the press on Tuesday morning after the initial announcement of the delays, MTR Corp operations director Adi Lau Tin-shing said the team had noticed the signalling failure at about 5.30am on Tuesday as it started to prepare services for the three lines. “As a result, the command [for] train speeds could not be passed to trains [on the] Kwun Tong, Tsuen Wan and Island lines,” he said. “Because of the safety first principle, [we could] only operate the service by manual operation with slow speeds.” Lau said the company could provide only 20 to 30 per cent of the services normally offered during peak hour, and called on other public transport operators to provide ...