Speeding Up Border Crossings

The checkpoint congestion faced by vehicles at land border crossings between Hong Kong and Mainland China could become history if a new, real-time technology for identifying goods in the supply chain is adopted.

In a recent cross-border transportation study, researchers in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management found that trucks took on average of 55 minutes to cross from Hong Kong to Shenzhen and 32 minutes from Shenzhen to Hong Kong. On heavy traffic days, vehicles could take many hours to cross due to hold-ups.

Adoption of the Electronic Product Code (EPC) could not only save time and cut inventory costs, but enable manpower to be reduced, and lessen the impact on the environment, according to Prof Lee Chung-yee, Head and Chair Professor of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management.

The EPC, a unique number that identifies a specific item in the supply chain, works together with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, which can remotely store and retrieve data and be attached to products for shipping, enabling real-time automatic identification of goods. The HKUST study showed that document processing and inspection at checkpoints were the prime cause of cross-border flow fluctuations.

Prof Lee said that utilizing the EPC network would also significantly boost Hong Kong’s position as a logistics hub, leading to increased business for the city. More than 10 million goods vehicles used land border crossings between Hong Kong and Mainland China in 2005.

The study, completed in July, was funded by the Hong Kong government and private sponsors.