As a city surrounded by the sea on three sides, water transport once formed the backbone of Hong Kong’s transport system, with ferries and kaitos carrying generations of Hong Kongers about their daily business. Even today, despite an extensive land transport network spanning the entire city, water transport remains an integral part of many people’s everyday lives for purposes such as commuting, supplying outlying islands, cargo handling, and tourism. More than 300 piers and landing facilities are the nodes of this water transport network. Though they might seem unremarkable at first glance, some clever design goes into meeting the specific conditions and needs of each site.
Hong Kong’s piers fall into two operational categories. The first type is the open-access public pier, which can be used by any boat but is mainly used by kaitos or routes with small passenger volumes. (Check out our previous article on kaitos.) The second type serve major scheduled ferry services and are privately managed and operated, although they were designed and built by the government.
In terms of physical design, there are generally three kinds of pier. The first and most simple are fixed landing steps along a quay that allow passengers to board and disembark. The second are large piers with mechanical platforms and ramps whose height can be adjusted according to the tide in order to match the height of boats’ gangways. Most piers serving major scheduled ferry routes fall into this category. The third are floating platforms or pontoons that rise and fall with the water level.
Landing steps on a public pier. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
Landing steps are Hong Kong’s most traditional and common pier landing facilities, found along seawalls and on public piers throughout the city. As the name implies, landing steps are stone steps embedded in the seawall leading down into the water. A pier may have one or more sets of steps.
The principle behind them is simple: since the tide fluctuates, the steps allow passengers to walk down to whatever level the boat is moored at. This makes them easier to maintain and manage than pontoons or floating platforms that stay submerged in the water for long periods. However, they have their limitations. At low tide, the lower steps are often slippery with seawater so that passengers need to be extra careful. Additionally, they are basically inaccessible to wheelchair users and trolleys.
Therefore, landing steps mainly serve small-to-medium-sized boats like kaitos and motor boats. However, there are a few exceptions.
Sok Kwu Wan Pier No 2. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
There are no ticket booths at Sok Kwu Wan Pier No. 2. Fare information is taped to a pillar. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
One of them is Sok Kwu Wan Pier No. 2 on Lamma Island, which mainly serves the ferry route to and from Central. Unlike a typical ferry pier with lifting platforms and ramps, Sok Kwu Wan Pier no. 2 is a modest public pier with basic landing steps and no ticketing booths or waiting rooms. While ferries have priority use, other boats are also permitted to dock there.
Sok Kwu Wan’s first pier was built in 1958 when the population was significantly smaller, so kaitos and scheduled ferries were able to share the same public pier. By the 1990s, Lamma’s tourism growth exceeding the existing pier’s capacity, so in 1998 the government built additional piers, designating Pier No. 2 for scheduled ferries.
Kowloon City Ferry Pier with lifting platform and ramps highlighted. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
At Sam Ka Tsuen Ferry Pier, the lifting platform is relatively basic, consisting only of a ramp. The ferry company has installed stairs at the end of the ramp for passengers to board. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
Control box for a lifting platform. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
In 1898, the Star Ferry was established, marking the construction of the first dedicated ferry piers in Hong Kong. The first-generation Central Star Ferry Pier was a rudimentary structure built from wood and rice straw. Early ferry piers were equipped with landing steps, but in the 1950s as passenger numbers grew, ferries started to use gangways to enable larger numbers of passengers to board and disembark quickly. New ferry piers or ones serving high passenger volumes were built with or converted to house lifting platforms and ramps.
Today, most ferry piers in Hong Kong are built this way: the waiting area leads to one or two ramps connected to a lifting platform driven by a massive hydraulic system, steel cables, or gears. Pier staff adjust the height of the platform based on the current tidal height and the ferry’s draft (the level of a boat in the water) after it is loaded with passengers. This ensures that the boat’s gangway is level with its deck.
The advantage of using gangways and lifting platforms is that passengers do not need to step across a gap between the boat and the pier, which reduces the risk of people falling into the water. However, back when ferries carried far more passengers than today, people were in such a rush to catch buses or trains that some would leap ashore before the gangway was fully lowered, resulting in accidents. Such incidents still occur on occasion, which is why the warning “No Jumping” (不准跳船) is sometimes posted on either side of pier lifting platforms.
"NO JUMPING" sign painted on the lifting platform of a pier. Photo credit: Lorraine, resident of Cheung Chau.
Due to the substantial cost and the two-to-three-year timeline that it took to build a ferry pier and its associated facilities, the government deemed only high-volume ferry routes worthy of such investment. In more recent years, with declining ferry ridership, the government has tended towards constructing lower-cost public piers, opting for floating platforms or steps.
Kaito docked at a floating pontoon at Aberdeen. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
Floating piers or pontoons are usually found at waterfront promenades. Ferry companies running scheduled routes have built them at Aberdeen, Ap Lei Chau and Tsuen Wan. Aberdeen Promenade in particular has a large number of floating piers providing services to and from Lamma Island, Po Toi Island, Ap Lei Chau, and floating restaurants that sit alongside traditional houseboats known locally as sai3 ga1 teng3 (曬家艇). These houseboats are two-storey, non-motorised vessels once used by local fishermen as both residences and platforms for drying seafood and other products.
Aberdeen’s coastline has undergone significant transformation over the years. In 1884, Island Road was built connecting Aberdeen to the north side of Hong Kong island. The Aberdeen section of the road was later renamed Aberdeen Avenue. Today’s Wu Nam Street now marks the location of the original coastline. Up until Aberdeen underwent significant reclamation in the 1970s, kaitos and fishing boats landed directly along the shore. Kaitos to Lamma Island, Po Toi Island and other destinations departed from what is now the site of Ocean Court.
In the 1980s, the government began to redevelop Aberdeen. Many boat people were resettled into the newly built Shek Pai Wan and Yue Kwong Estates, while the Aberdeen Dockyards were redeveloped into Aberdeen Centre. Aberdeen Praya Road was built on the newly reclaimed land, and a waterfront park was created along the new seawall, which was equipped with several sets of landing steps.
However, as Aberdeen’s boat traffic grew, the landing steps proved inadequate for demand, so the Marine Department allowed kaito operators to apply for permission to use pontoons as piers.
Passengers waiting for the Ap Lei Chau ferry on a pontoon pier. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
Pontoons are linked to the shore by moveable gangways secured to bollards by ropes. The landward end of the gangway is hinged, while the seaward end rests on rollers. That way, the gangway can get steeper or shallower depending on the tide, which is why passengers can feel the slope changing when they walk up the gangway. As both the pontoon and the boat float on the water, they stay level with each other regardless of the tide, making it easy to board and disembark.
Most of these pontoons were custom built by the ferry companies based on their operational needs. Installing one requires prior approval from the Marine Department and they must be built within the area designated by the Department. Operators also have to apply to the power company for an electrical box to run cables from shore to provide lighting.
Electrical boxes along the Aberdeen waterfront serving floating pontoon piers. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
However, because they float on the water, pontoons are subject to the waves, so that waiting passengers might get seasick before they even board their boat.
In contrast to landing steps, floating piers always remain level with the boat. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
In recent years, the government has incorporated floating platforms into new public piers that serve lower traffic ferry routes, such as the Ma Liu Shui New Ferry Pier and Sam Mun Tsai Pier.
Unlike the private pontoons mentioned earlier, these floating platforms are secured to the seabed by massive piles, allowing them to rise and fall without drifting. Their much larger surface area also gives them greater stability, making them accessible to wheelchair users.
The newly built Ma Liu Shui New Ferry Pier is a floating platform that allows for level boarding. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
The floating platform is anchored by heavy piles, seen at the end of the platform. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2026.
So next time you take a ferry, take a closer look at the pier. Whether it uses simple steps or a sophisticated hydraulic platform, all piers are designed to solve one problem: how to enable a fixed structure to roll with the tide.
This article was written by contract researcher Ng Cheuk Hang.
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