About 7.67 million people are expected to pass through immigration checkpoints during the festive period. The Immigration Department said it expects about 5.64 million people to travel by land.

The peak period for passenger traffic will be December 22 to January 2. About 3.49 million passengers are expected to travel through Lo Wu, a daily average of 291,000.

The number of departing passengers at Lo Wu is expected to peak at 215,000 on December 23, while the peak of arrivals is expected to fall on December 26 with 190,000 people returning to Hong Kong. The highest daily traffic is expected to reach 350,000 on December 23.

Lok Ma Chau checkpoint will see about 1.81 million passengers, a daily average of 151,000. Departures are expected to peak on December 24, with about 100,000 people departing for the Mainland. The number of arriving passengers is expected to reach a peak of 102,000 on December 26. Daily traffic is expected to reach 169,000 on December 25.

Manpower deployment 

To cope with the anticipated traffic, the department has suspended leave applications from staff working at control points and arranged for 120 extra officers to be posted at checkpoints during the holiday period through internal deployment.

The department has, with Police, the Customs & Excise Department, the Transport Department, the KCRC and Shenzhen authorities, set up a Joint Command Centre at Lo Wu.

Lok Ma Chau control point will activate the dual-facing counter unidirectional application mode during the peak period of visitor arrivals, to increase the number of clearance counters.