Tsing Ma Bridge is a bridge in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. It is the world's 16th-longest span suspension bridge, and was the second longest at time of completion. The bridge was named after the two islands it connects, namely

Tsing Yi Tsing Yi, sometimes referred to as Tsing Yi Island, is an island in the urban area of Hong Kong, to the northwest of Hong Kong Island and south of Tsuen Wan. With an area of , the island has extended drastically by reclamation along almost al ...

and

Ma Wan Ma Wan is an island of Hong Kong, located between Lantau Island and Tsing Yi Island, with an area of .road and rail traffic, which also makes it the largest suspension bridge of this type. The bridge has a main span of and a height of . The span is the longest of all bridges in the world carrying rail traffic. The bridge deck carries six lanes of automobile traffic, with three lanes in each direction. The lower level contains two rail tracks and two sheltered carriageways used for maintenance access and traffic lanes when particularly severe typhoons strike Hong Kong and the bridge deck is closed to traffic.

History

Background

The Tsing Ma Bridge is the most prominent element of the

Lantau Link The Lantau Link, formerly known as the Lantau Fixed Crossing, is a roadway in Hong Kong forming part of Route 8 linking Lantau Island to Tsing Yi, from which other roads lead to the urban areas of Kowloon and the rest of the New Territories ...

, an infrastructure project built to connect

Lantau Lantau Island (also Lantao Island, Lan Tao) is the largest island in Hong Kong, located West of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, and is part of the New Territories. Administratively, most of Lantau Island is part of the Islands Dis ...

, Hong Kong's largest island, to the urbanised areas of the territory. Until this link opened in 1997, Lantau Island could only be accessed by water, and was completely rural. The Lantau Link was built as part of the Airport Core Programme, which ultimately served to provide Hong Kong with a brand new airport at Chek Lap Kok (off the north coast of Lantau) to replace the older, congested

Kai Tak Airport Kai Tak Airport was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. Officially known as Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to 6 July 1998, it is often referred to as Hong Kong International Airport, Kai Tak, or simply Ka ...

Construction

Numerous consortia bid on the contract to construct the bridge. Hyundai made the lowest bid but were disqualified for non-compliance with the financial requirements. A Japanese bid was ruled out for being too expensive. The Anglo Japanese Construction Joint Venture, comprising Costain,

Mitsui is one of the largest ''keiretsu'' in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world. The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co. ( general trading company), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Nippon Paper Industries ...

, and Trafalgar House, won the job. Construction work on the bridge began in May 1992. Gammon Construction constructed the caissons for the bridge towers. The framework for each caisson was floated into place and sunk, and then filled with concrete underwater. The two caissons on the Ma Wan side weigh 4,500 tons each, while those on the Tsing Yi side (closer to shore) each weigh about 3,000 tons. Land reclamation was carried out at both ends of the bridge. The more substantial reclamation on Ma Wan was used as a work platform for construction crews. The first steel deck segment was lifted into place in late 1994. The approach deck segments were constructed in Britain and Dubai and then shipped to Hong Kong for assembling. The main span segments were built by

Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company was a UK bridge works and structural steel contractor based in Darlington. It built landmarks including the Victoria Falls Bridge in Zimbabwe; the Tees Transporter Bridge; the Forth Road and Humber suspe ...

in the U.K. and by Mitsui in Japan. The climbing cranes used to erect the tower portals were coincidentally also used on the HSBC Main Building a decade earlier, as well as at Canary Wharf in the interim.

Inauguration

Construction was finished in May 1997. It cost HK$7.2 billion. The

, of which the bridge is an integral part, was inaugurated on 27 April 1997 by former British Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

. Security was extremely tight as Thatcher was considered one of the top targets of the

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief th ...

. The commemoration ceremony began with a flotilla of police and other government vessels passing beneath the bridge, before

Government Flying Service The Government Flying Service (GFS) is a disciplined unit and paramilitary flying organisation of the Government of Hong Kong. The service has its head office in, and operates from, the southwestern end of Hong Kong International Airport at ...

and

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

aircraft flew above the concrete towers. Thatcher, Chief Secretary

Anson Chan Anson Maria Elizabeth Chan Fang On-sang, (; ''née'' Fang; born 17 January 1940) is a retired Hong Kong politician and civil servant who was the first ethnic Chinese and woman to serve as Chief Secretary, the second-highest position in both ...

, and Governor Chris Patten then switched on the bridge lights and drove across the span with other dignitaries. The celebration concluded with a 20-minute firework and laser show, featuring fire pouring from the length of the bridge, engineered by the Pyromagic Productions company. Chief Executive-designate Tung Chee-hwa declined to attend as he said he would rather meet with officials in Guangdong. The opening ceremony was highly anticipated and attracted more than 100,000 spectators, most of them standing along Castle Peak Road, which was closed to road traffic. The

Tuen Mun Road Tuen Mun Road is a major expressway in Hong Kong which connects Tuen Mun with Tsuen Wan, within the New Territories. It is part of Hong Kong's Route 9, which circumnavigates the New Territories. Opened in 1978, it was once the major trunk rou ...

was also closed to traffic from 7:40 to 8:20 pm, and a 20-minute fireworks display, costing HK$5 million, began at 8 pm. MTR, Citybus, and KCR Corporation arranged special transport services for the event. More than 2,300 police officers were deployed, and the crowd control exercise was studied by the police for its relevance to the upcoming Handover ceremony. Three boating accidents occurred during the bridge inauguration. The Lantau Link was opened to traffic on 22 May 1997 at 8:00 am. Cars queued for four hours before police opened the bridge. Snaking queues also formed at bus stations at 7:00 am as passengers sought to view the new infrastructure as well as the

North Lantau New Town North Lantau New Town is the newest of the nine new towns in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, located on the northern coast of the Lantau Island in the New Territories. It covers Tung Chung, Tai Ho Wan, Siu Ho Wan, other p ...

, which was still under construction. The first road accident on the Lantau Link occurred on the Tsing Ma Bridge on 23 May 1997. Two motorcyclists were injured in a collision with a lorry. The police warned the public not to rush to use the new bridges and highways to avoid causing chaos. Two special bus routes came into operation on 24 May 1997 for passengers to view the Lantau Link. The X21 and X31 buses ran from

Tai Kok Tsui Tai Kok Tsui is an area west of Mong Kok in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The mixed land use of industrial and residential is present in the old area. The Cosmopolitan Dock and oil depots were previously located there. Blocks of high-rise residential b ...

and Tsuen Wan, respectively.

Operation

The Tsing Ma Bridge crosses the

Ma Wan Channel Ma Wan Channel () is a Channel (geography), channel between Ma Wan and Tsing Yi islands in Hong Kong. The north end of the channel is Ting Kau where it joins the Rambler Channel. To the west it joins with the Kap Shui Mun channel running to the so ...

, linking the islands of Tsing Yi and Ma Wan. It is part of the

, which links the

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

and

Lantau Island Lantau Island (also Lantao Island, Lan Tao) is the largest island in Hong Kong, located West of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, and is part of the New Territories. Administratively, most of Lantau Island is part of the Islands ...

, and eventually leads to the Hong Kong International Airport on

Chek Lap Kok Chek Lap Kok is an island in the western waters of Hong Kong's New Territories. Unlike the smaller Lam Chau, it was only partially leveled when it was assimilated via land reclamation into the island for the current Hong Kong International ...

via the North Lantau Highway. The Tsing Ma Bridge is an important gateway to Lantau Island. It is part of the Route 8 expressway, which connects the Lantau Link, the West Kowloon expressway,

Cheung Sha Wan Cheung Sha Wan is an area between Lai Chi Kok and Sham Shui Po in New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is mainly residential to the north and south, with an industrial area in between. Administratively it is part of Sham Shui Po District, which als ...

and

Sha Tin Sha Tin, also spelt Shatin, is a neighbourhood along Shing Mun River in the eastern New Territories, Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Sha Tin District. Sha Tin is one of the neighbourhoods of the Sha Tin New Town project. The ...

. The rail line is shared by the MTR's

Tung Chung line The Tung Chung line is one of the ten lines of the MTR system in Hong Kong, linking the town of Tung Chung with central Hong Kong. A part of the Tung Chung line was built along with the Kap Shui Mun Bridge and the Tsing Ma Bridge. The line c ...

and

Airport Express The AirPort Express is a Wi-Fi base station product from Apple Inc., part of the AirPort product line. While more compact and in some ways simpler than another Apple Wi-Fi base station, the AirPort Extreme, the Express offers audio output cap ...

. The bridge, together with other highway, bridge and tunnel connections in the area, are part of the Tsing Ma Control Area under the Tsing Ma Control Area Ordinance (Cap. 498) in Hong Kong Law. The control area has been managed by Tsing Ma Management Limited since opening. The control area's traffic management system was developed by Delcan Corporation of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Special regulations and by-laws apply in the area. Along with the Ting Kau Bridge and

Kap Shui Mun Bridge The Kap Shui Mun Bridge (KSMB) in Hong Kong, part of Lantau Link of Route 8, is one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world that transports both road and railway traffic, with the upper deck used for motor vehicles and the lower deck u ...

, the bridge is monitored by the Wind and Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS).

Surveillance cameras Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly tr ...

are also installed on the bridge to record traffic conditions. The video is available at the government website. It is updated every two minutes. There are no longer tolls on Lantau Link since 27 December 2020. Before, the fee of using Tsing Ma bridge for motorcycles, private cars, public double-decker buses and heavy goods vehicles are HK$10, $15, $30 and $40 respectively, charged both directions. The normal

speed limit Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed - expre ...

on the bridge is , subject to lowering in the event of road work or strong wind. Traffic may also be directed to the sheltered carriageways on the lower deck when there are very strong winds. There are no pavements on the bridge.

Design

The bridge was designed by

Mott MacDonald The Mott MacDonald Group is a consultancy headquartered in the United Kingdom. It employs 16,000 staff in 150 countries. Mott MacDonald is one of the largest employee-owned companies in the world. It was established in 1989 by the merger of M ...

. The firm designed an early iteration of the bridge in 1982, with a two lane dual carriageway on the top deck, and a light railway on the lower deck. The bridge was redesigned beginning in 1989 to account for the three lane dual highway and the heavier airport railway. The designers were inspired by the

Forth Bridge The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...

in Scotland and the Severn Bridge in England.

Wind tunnel testing

The objectives of the

wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

studies were to demonstrate the safety of the structure under construction and once completed, both with respect to

aerodynamic Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

stability Stability may refer to: Mathematics *Stability theory, the study of the stability of solutions to differential equations and dynamical systems ** Asymptotic stability ** Linear stability ** Lyapunov stability ** Orbital stability ** Structural sta ...

as well as the possible effects of extreme typhoon wind speeds. A further objective was to provide dynamic response data at several key locations to compare with full scale data from the ongoing monitoring program, conducted by the

Highways Department Highways Department is a department of the Hong Kong Government responsible for developing Hong Kong's road and railway network as well as road maintenance. History The department was previously an office within the former Civil Engineering De ...

of Hong Kong. A 1 to 80 scale section model of the deck in the erection stage, and a 1 to 400 scale full aeroelastic model of the entire bridge were constructed. It is a Monte-Carlo simulation of the typhoon wind climate. The full model was tested in different stages of construction in turbulent boundary layer flow, complete with the local

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sc ...

to model the wind conditions at the site. The model tests identified critical stages of erection that allowed the construction schedule of the bridge to be tailored to avoid the typhoon season. The comparison of model test results and the full scale monitoring will assist engineers to better understand the behaviour of long span bridges in wind and to improve current design methods.

Major components

There is one tower located on

Wok Tai Wan Wok Tai Wan () was a bay on the northwest coast of Tsing Yi Island, Hong Kong. The beach in the bay was once a naturist resort. The difficulties involved in getting to the bay on foot with high its surrounding hills, or by small boat because of tu ...

of Tsing Yi side and another on a man-made island off the coast of Ma Wan. Both towers are above sea level and founded on relatively shallow bedrock. The towers are two-legged with trusses at intervals, in the form of portal beam design. The legs were constructed with high-strength concrete of 50 MPa (concrete grade 50/20) strength, using a slipform system in a continuous operation. The pulling force in the main suspension cables is taken up by large gravity anchorages located at both ends of the bridge. They are massive concrete structures deeply seated on bedrock on the landside of Tsing Yi and Ma Wan island. The total weight of concrete used in the Tsing Yi anchorage is 200,000 tonnes, and Ma Wan Anchorage has 250,000 tonnes of concrete. The cables were constructed by an aerial spinning process. The process involved drawing wires from a constant-tension supply, and pulling loops of these wires from one anchorage to the other, passing through a 500-tonne cast-iron saddle on top of each bridge tower seating the cable. A total of 70,000 galvanised wires of diameter were placed and adjusted to form the two diameter main cables. The steelwork for the deck structure was fabricated in Britain and Japan. After delivery, they were further processed and assembled in

Dongguan Dongguan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the ...

, China into standard deck modules. A total of 96 modules, each long and about 480 tonnes in weight, were prepared. These deck modules were brought to the site by specially designed barges and raised into the deck position by a pair of strand jack gantries that could manoeuvre along the main cable. The approach span on the Tsing Yi side is similar in form and cross-section to the suspended deck, but is supported on piers instead by cables. The first span was assembled on the ground and raised into position using strand jacks. Further construction then proceeded in cantilever in smaller sections, using derrick cranes stationed on the deck level. An expansion joint which allowed for a maximum thermal movement of ± was also provided and located inside the approach span. The bridge parapets are of a special design by Hong Kong standards, comprising high-tension steel strands anchored on metal posts.

Ship impact protection

The rock seawalls around the base of each bridge tower are capable of halting a 220,000 tonne ship moving at eight knots.

Tourism

The Tsing Ma Bridge has become a scenic spot as well as a landmark. There is a visitor centre, the Lantau Link Visitor Centre and Viewing Platform, located at the northwest corner of Tsing Yi Island, near the bridge's Tsing Yi end. From the Scenery Viewing Platform, one can also see the Ting Kau Bridge and

. The bridge can also be seen from the

Airport Core Programme Exhibition Centre The Airport Core Programme Exhibition Centre is housed in a single-storey distinctive white structure situated at 401 Castle Peak Road, Ting Kau, New Territories in Hong Kong. The exhibition centre is run by the Home Affairs Department for th ...

located about north of the bridge.

References

External links

*
Tsing Ma Bridge description from City University, Hong Kong
(archive) {{Bridges in Hong Kong, state=expanded Bridges completed in 1997 Bridges in Hong Kong Route 8 (Hong Kong) Road-rail bridges Landmarks in Hong Kong Ma Wan Suspension bridges in Hong Kong Railway bridges in Hong Kong Tsing Yi 1997 establishments in Hong Kong