NLB Route 38

Route 38 uses MAN A95
Route Info
Terminus	Yat Tung Estate ↺ Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus ●
via	North Lantau Hospital
Distance	4.2km
Travelling time	17mins
Commencement date	2001/3/15
Operation Info
Current operator	NLB
Main Vehicle	AD,MDR
Fare Info
Full fare	$3.6
Service Hours
Origin service time	05:30 - 00:27
Headway	2-7mins

The North Lantau Bus Route 38 is operated by New Lantao Bus (NLB). It runs circular between Yat Tung Estate and Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus, observing North Lantau Hospital, Tung Chung Fire Station and Tung Chung Cable Car Terminal.

Route 38, together with the supplementary route 38X, is the cheapest route of NLB. Nevertheless, many residents of Yat Tung Estate make use of this route to travel to and from Tung Chung Town Centre, making it NLB's "most profitable bus route", with frequency as high as two minutes during peak hours on weekdays, which is also the highest among all NLB routes, and is one of the franchised bus routes in Hong Kong with the most frequent headways at present.

History

• 15 March 2001: Route 38 was put into service between Yat Tung Estate and Tung Chung MTR Station to tie in with the occupation of Yat Tung (I) Estate.
  • As the permanent terminus at Yat Tung Estate had not yet been constructed, a temporary terminus was set up alongside Yu Tung Road outside Hong Yat House.
• 1 September 2001: Octopus interchange concession with MTR Tung Chung Line was introduced.
• 6 January 2003: Octopus interchange concessions with Citybus and Long Win Bus (LWB) routes were introduced, offering fare concessions for interchanging between certain bus routes in Tung Chung Town Centre.
• 30 May 2004: The Yat Tung Estate terminus was relocated from Yu Tung Road to a covered public transport interchange on the ground floor of Carpark 3 in the estate to tie in with the occupation of Yat Tung (II) Estate.
• Due to MTR fare increase, the amount of interchange concession with this route was increased from $1.0 to $1.5 on the following dates:
  • 9 July 2010 to 8 January 2011
  • 1 July 2011 to 1 January 2012
• 1 July to 30 September 2012
• 2 November 2013: The original intermediate stop at Shun Tung Road near Tung Chung Crescent for Tung Chung Railway Station direction was cancelled due to low patronage.
• 20 April 2015: Due to the temporary closure of Tung Chung Town Centre Terminus due to its acquisition as a site for the Citygate extension project:
  • Changed to enter and exit the Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus via Mei Tung Street;
  • Changed to turn left to Tat Tung Road into Shun Tung Road after leaving Tung Chung MTR Station for Yat Tung Estate direction, and the intermediate stop at "Citygate" was cancelled to save travelling time.
• 31 December 2017: Estimated Time of Bus Arrival Enquiry Service (ETA) enquiry service was introduced to this route.
• 11 July 2019: With the exit of Tung Chung Town Centre Bus Terminus at Mei Tung Street permanently closed, the return journey was diverted to enter and exit the bus terminus via the entrance/exit at Tat Tung Road, but there is no arrangement to divert back to the leave the terminus by right-turning into Tat Tung Road.
• 10 October 2022: New Octopus interchange concession with Routes 37M and 39M were introduced.
• 27 September 2023: Octopus interchange concession with Route B6 was increased from $2.2 to $3.6.

Historical route information

Details of the past service hours and headways, fares and other route information of this route are set out in the "Historical route information" sub-page of this article.

Service Hours and Headways

From Yat Tung Estate
Service Hours	Headways (mins)
Mondays to Fridays
05:30 - 06:48	6
06:48 - 07:02	3/4
07:02 - 07:04	2
07:04 - 09:04	3
09:04 - 18:28	4
18:28 - 19:24	3/4
19:24 - 00:00	4
00:00 - 00:06	6
00:06 - 00:27	7
Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays
05:30 - 07:00	6
07:00 - 00:00	4
00:00 - 00:06	6
00:06 - 00:27	7

This route provides Estimated Time of Arrival Enquiry Service.

Fares

Journey/Boarding Stops	Fares
Full Fare	$3.6

Fare Remarks

Half-fare for children aged below 12 and senior citizens aged 65 or above; the remainder of the fare after half-fare will be counted as 10 cents. Elderly persons aged 65 or above using Senior Octopus Cards or Personalised Octopus cards, Hong Kong residents aged 60 to 64 using JoyYou Card, and eligible persons with disabilities using Personalised Octopus cards with "Persons with Disabilities Status" can enjoy a flat fare of $2.0 per journey under the $2 Concessionary Fare. If the concessionary fare for eligible persons with disabilities aged below 12 and senior citizens aged 65 or above is less than $2.0 after a 50% discount from the regular fare, the beneficiary is only required to pay the original concessionary fare; if the original full fare for Hong Kong residents aged 60 to 64 or eligible persons with disabilities is already less than $2.0, the beneficiary is also only required to pay the original full fare. Passengers are required to tender exact fare by cash or by Octopus card when boarding. No exact change will be given. Passengers can use AlipayHK "EasyGo" and WeChat QR Code Payment to pay the fares. Passengers using this form of payment cannot enjoy the "Public Transport Fare Subsidy" nor the "Public Transport Fare Concession Scheme for the Elderly and Eligible Persons with Disabilities". Holders of "Lantau Pass" valid on that day should show their ride pass to bus captain upon boarding for free rides. This route has no section fares.

Octopus Interchange Concessions

Passengers using the same Octopus card to interchange to the designated route after this route within a specific time, or transfer from the designated route to this route can enjoy an interchange concession. The details are as follows: (Half discount for children and senior citizens.) Template:NLB Route 38 Interchange Concession Scheme Template:NLB Tung Chung Town Centre Interchange Concessions

Bus Deployments

According to the 2020-2021 Bus Route Planning Programme, Route 38 was deployed with 19 single-decker buses, using MAN NL273 (MN30-39), Young Man JNP6122G (YM01-24) and BYD K9R (BE01-02) single-decker buses. Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic, from 21 February 2020 onwards, MAN A95 12m (MDR) and Enviro400 Euro V 10.4m (AD) double-decker buses were deployed instead.

Bus Deployment Evolution History

Bus Deployment Evolution History of NLB Route 38

Initially, Dennis Dart (DN1-3) and Isuzu (ILS) buses were used as the common vehicles for this route, while Volvo B6LE (VL01-06), MAN NL263 (MN01-09) and NL262 (MN10-14) also served on this route frequently before they were retired from the fleet. From 2 March 2014, Dennis Tridents (DN4-5), which were purchased from Citybus, were briefly assigned to this route. On 29 January 2016, DN4 and DN5 were retired due to their age and replaced by MAN A95 12m (MD). Due to the shorter journeys on this route, passengers were reluctant to use the upper deck seats and switched back to single-decker buses, making double-decker buses no longer common. Later, MAN NL263 (MN01-09) was replaced by MAN NL273 (MN30-39) and Young Man JNP6122G (YM01-24) single-decker buses after it was fully retired in 2018. At the end of July 2018, two BYD K9Rs (BE01-02) joined to operate this route to start a two-year trial. To reduce operating cost, this route was replaced by MAN A95 12m (MDR) and Enviro400 Euro V 10.4m (AD) double-decker buses from 21 February 2020 onwards.

Routing

The distance of this route is approx. 4.2km, and the journey time is approximately 17mins. (The average speed is 14.8km/h.)

Via: Yat Tung Street, Chung Yan Road, Yu Tung Road, Shun Tung Road, Tat Tung Road, Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus, Tat Tung Road, Shun Tung Road, Yu Tung Road, Chung Yan Road and Yat Tung Street

Route Map
NLB Route 38/Route Map

New Lantao Bus Route 38 (Yat Tung Estate ↺ Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus)
No.	Area	Road	Bus Stop Name	Remarks
1	Tung Chung West		Yat Tung Estate Bus Terminus
2		Chung Yan Road	North Lantau Hospital (South Bound)
3	Tung Chung Town Centre	Shun Tung Road	Tung Chung Fire Station
4		Tat Tung Road	Tung Chung Cable Car Terminal	Interchange to Citybus/LWB routes
5			Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus	Circular route return point Interchange with MTR
6		Shun Tung Road	Yu Tung Court	Interchange from Citybus/LWB routes
7	Tung Chung West	Chung Yan Road	North Lantau Hospital (North Bound)
8		Yat Tung Street	Kui Yat House Yat Tung Estate	Alighting only
9			Yat Tung Estate

Ridership

This route provides convenience mainly for residents of Yat Tung Estate to go shopping in Tung Chung Town Centre or to connect to MTR. Although there are Routes 34, S52 and S64 with similar routings and fares, a small number of residents prefer to commute to and from the town centre on foot as they find bus fares too expensive; however, the frequency of this route is high, and the provision of interchange concessions with MTR makes this route fully occupied at all times. However, the frequent frequency of this route, coupled with the provision of interchange concessions with the MTR, makes it a fully packed bus at any time of the day or night.

This route is currently the most frequent NLB route and the most profitable bus route of the company. However, the increasing saturation of Tung Chung New Town has caused NLB to become less optimistic about the future development of this route, as there is limited room for revenue growth.

Related Incidents

• 14 August 2012: At about 11:00 pm, a Young Man JNP6122G (YM14/PZ7149) lost control of the vehicle as it left Yat Tung Estate Bus Terminus, and was suspected to be dodging a small child crossing the road, and drove onto the pavement and crashed into the columns on the external wall of the terminus, injuring the driver who was sent to hospital.
• 14 July 2018: A drunken passenger travelling on a MAN NL273 (MN31/NF1274) heading towards Yat Tung Estate Bus Terminus requested the bus captain to open the front door to let him get off the bus. The driver refused and was assaulted by the passenger. Colleagues of the bus captain stopped the incident and called the police. The incident resulted in injuries to the bus captain and two police officers who subdued the passenger, who was arrested on suspicion of common assault and resisting arrest.
• 11 July 2023: At about 10:00 a.m., while a Young Man JNP6122G (YM16/RV835) serving on Route 37H was dropping off passengers at Yat Tung Estate Bus Terminus, another MAN A95 (MDR28/VR3473) serving on this route had just left the bus and unexpectedly crashed into the rear end of the bus of Route 37H. The windscreen of the bus of this route was cracked, and the pump handle was thrown off. The windscreen of the bus broke and the pump handle was thrown off, causing the passengers on the bus to lose balance and fall down. A total of 16 people, including a bus driver, were injured, most of them slightly. The ambulance crew triaged and bandaged the injured at the scene, who were then taken to hospital.

Gallery

Young Man JNP6122G was once a common model on Route 38

MAN NL263 was once vehicles on Route 38

Route 38's circular point is located at Tung Chung Station

More pictures, photos and related information about this article are available in the following Gallery Page:

NLB Route 38 (Edit)

Related Articles

• NLB Route 37
• NLB Route 37H
• NLB Route 38P (Cancelled)
• NLB Route 38X
• NLB Route N38
• Citybus Route S52
• LWB Route S64
• Yat Tung Market Free Shuttle Bus

External Links

Template:Ref-NLBTemplate:Pig-NLB