Hong Kong's care for the elderly and physically disadvantaged

As I have mentioned in previous posts, even though Hong Kong is such a developed and fast paced country, it still has its warm and gentle parts that make it a nice country to live in. As a society, it is quite obvious as a visitor that HK takes measures to help the elderly and the physically disadvantaged. In this post, I'll be writing about the some things I've observed in HK that are geared towards helping this group of people and drawing similarities with what we have in Singapore.

In Hong Kong there is a yellow device attached to most of the pedestrian crossing traffic lights. There are one on each side and there is this circular sign on it. I've no idea what it is but I am guessing it is a device for the physically disadvantaged to use to cross the road. I'd say that because I've seen something similar in Singapore. Some pedestrian crossing traffic lights in Singapore have these devices for the elderly to tap their concession ez-link cards with so that the green man will last longer for them to be able to cross the road in time.

Singapore's tap for longer crossing time machine (Source)

On top of the device, in HK there is also these beeping/ticking sound at these pedestrian crossing to assist the blind crossing the road. When the red man is shown, the beeping sound is not very fast, around 3 beeps every 2 seconds. When the green man is on, the beeping speed increases to around 8 beeps per second. When the green man is flashing, the beeping slows down to 4 beeps per second.

Also, if you can see in the background of the photo below, there are these orangey- yellow zebra crossing. They are slightly elevated to, I assume, help the blind feel and cross the road. These would also be useful for people who are walking sideways from veering off the pedestrian crossing while talking to their friends but I guess that is only an additional benefit to the stripes. (I don't think the government would spend so much money just for that purpose!) These stripes are almost like the speed strips that regulate motorcycle speeds on the roads in Singapore. Below is a picture of the device I talked about earlier the I saw in HK. I'm really curios about what the orange device attached to the traffic light is. If you know what this is please let me know!!

Traffic light beeper

Similar to Singapore's MRT, the seats on the MTR also have priority seats. Of course, they also work in the same way as in Singapore. While Singapore's signs are focused on being subtle and classy, Hong Kong's are very obvious and have vibrant colors. Both styles are nice in their own way, but when I was at Hong Kong, I felt that it was a refreshing change to the ones I see everyday. What I liked about Hong Kong's priority seatings is the bright colors that they used. The smiley face is also really cute!

Singapore's MRT's reserved seats (Source)

Hong Kong's priority seats on the MTR

Similar to the MTR, the buses follow similar style of priority seating as the MTR/ MRT. For Singapore's bus priority seat, the seat is also known by a small sign as seen in the first picture below. On the other hand, Hong Kong's priority seats on public buses take on a bright red color, similar to the MTR's priority seats. While Singapore's priority seat is of the same color as the other seats on the bus, HK's priority seat is the only set of seats in red so its also very obvious to visitors and people who are unfamiliar to the culture in HK that the seats are different from the usual seats. I don't have a preference between the two types of promoting consideration for those who need the seats more. Seeing the vibrant red in the MTR in HK is a refreshing change from the signs in SG but if I live in HK and visited SG, I might like the signs in SG better because of their subtlety.

Singapore's reserved seat on the bus (Source)

Hong Kong's priority seats on the bus

These are the main observations I made about the elderly and disadvantaged care in HK! Overall, i think that the bright red colors used to represent the priority seating might work very effective in guilt-tripping commuters to give up these seats to those who need it more, or even not sit on them entirely. These priority seating arrangement seemed as if it was newly enforced since the stickers in the MTR and the printing and seating on the buses look very new. Perhaps the bright red was used as an initial kickoff for this project because is is a new initiative, or maybe the previous project for priority seating did not work as well therefore this new project was launched, the important thing is that the effort pays off and the target group is able to reap the benefits from the project! So here is the end of my two cents on Hong Kong's care for the elderly or disadvantaged. Hope you have found it insightful.

Anyway if you have noticed, I've added a logo watermark at the bottom of the photos that I took with my Sony Xperia Z phone. I'm super happy with it! It was done by a graphic designer Elliot Chua. Let me know what you think of this new addition!