A tiny, crowded city, Hong Kong has only about 1,160 miles of highways. However, the city boasts about 450 vehicles for every mile of road, an extremely high density. Many of these are commercial vehicles, trucks, buses, and taxis. Some are private vehicles, although there are only about 350,000 privately owned automobiles registered in the city, meaning the vast majority of Hong Kong's residents do not own a car. If they did, the city would come to a standstill from the added congestion on the streets. For this reason, 90 percent of Hong Kong's 7 million people use public transportation to move around the city. This system, rated by Asiaweek magazine as among the best public transportation systems in the world, makes more than 10.5 million passenger trips each day.

Buses

Buses are the most commonly used form of public transportation, accounting for 52 percent of the passenger trips. The government has granted...