The terrible lines for the iconic Peak Tram in Hong Kong
Something has to be done about this - but no one cares
Me Jamie, your host, I am English and I have lived in Hong Kong since January 2nd 1972 - I know the place.
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The terrible lines for the iconic Peak Tram in Hong Kong
Something has to be done about this - but no one cares
click on the image to enlarge
This image above was taken by my great friend Stephanie of Hong Kong A La Carte Tours who also run quality Private Tours of Hong Kong, this image was taken on May 2nd 2025 at 10.45am at the Garden Road Terminus where you catch the iconic Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak. The terminus building holds 1,300 people and this queue was outside the building, there was probably anywhere from 400 - 500 people OUTSIDE the terminus.
Overtourism in Hong Kong May 3rd 2025
As you can see from the news reports, a 2 hour wait for the Peak Tram to go to Victoria Peak and the Star Ferry completely overwhelmed and nobody seems to care, all they care about is numbers and to them hordes of tourists is success, it vindicates their policies, it is a pity that they do not seem to want to eat in restaurants or buy from our struggling shops, quality not quantity should be the goal.
It does not seem to occur to anyone in the Government that people are very unhappy to wait for 2 hours to ride on the iconic Peak Tram and they will take to social media to vent their feelings which are entirely justified
The Iconic Peak Tram to and from Victoria Peak in Hong Kong
The Peak Tram
“As one of the city’s most iconic experiences with the best views over the skyscrapers and across Victoria Harbour, it’s no wonder the Peak Tram is a popular tourist attraction in Hong Kong and one that you should definitely not miss. Unfortunately this comes with consequences: it’s common to see long lines to get onto the Peak Tram and up to Peak which snake out of the building, up and around the corner and even across to the other side of the street. But fear not courageous travellers, there are ways to avoid the Peak Tram queue by shortening your waiting time or even skipping the line altogether.”
The blurb above is what is on the Klook (an online travel agent) website in Hong Kong and they have nailed the problem.
So in a nutshell. the Peak Tram has what I call the Disney Problem, in other words it is so famous and iconic you have to waste hours of your valuable time queueing up for a ride.
To me there is a very simple solution and I know with absolute certainty that neither the Company owners or the Hong Kong Government will actually consider the solution, the clearly do not care because all they are interested in is numbers and bettering those numbers every 3 months.
Quite simply what they should do as a public service and smooth out the waiting time is install cameras with a live feed of the Peak Tram Terminus at Garden Road (going up) and the Peak Tower Terminus (going down) this will enable people to decide if they should go when there are huge lines, I can guarantee that most people will simply go earlier (if they research in advance) or go later.
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You can actually see this relatively accurate chart of popular times to ride the Peak Tram but it is not enough to make an informed decision, you absolutely need a real time VISUAL AID feed so you can make an informed decision.
I should also point out that on the Peak Tram website you can if you look at the FAQ page right at the bottom, links to the Hong Kong Observatory (A Hong Kong Government Department that handles weather forecasting) almost live feed of the views from Victoria Peak (a snapshot of the views every 5 minutes)
I use this extensively as if you cannot see anything on the camera images then why bother going to Victoria Peak as there will be no views, I use it daily and one thing I do know is that most of the time there will be long periods during the day when there is a view but you still have the option of rescheduling.
When it comes to queueing for the Peak Tram you have no option other than to physically go to the Peak Tram Terminus on Garden Road, (which is quite a walk from the nearest subway station) and there is nothing more upsetting and deflating than to find 2,000 people in the line!! and worse, to have to queue outside in the heat and humidity.
I totally appreciate that the Peak Tram is a commercially successful business but very few people know that the entire Peak Tram | Peak Tower Experience is run by the Hong Kong & Shanghai Hotels group, so they also run the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, I just cannot imagine the Peninsula Hotel Management would run an operation which makes thousands of people every day extremely unhappy.
My argument is very simple, having a feed showing the lines will allow people to reschedule their visit, ie go earlier or later, I actually thing it might increase business for them if they showed people they cared.
I did send an email to the Peak Tram Company about this but as usual I got no response and no doubt that if they had responded it would have mentioned they have been running a commercially successful operation since 1888 and they do not need any advice etc.
As a Private Tour Guide I have my own work around to the problem, I generally go up to Victoria Peak on the bus or by Taxi and come down on the Peak Tram and generally will try and come back down no later than 1pm, going down on the Tram to me is much more interesting (and that is a story for another day) I do not see any reason to do a 2 way ride on the Peak Tram and that saves quite a bit of money given the high price for tickets and outrageous pricing for skip the line tickets,
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This is a snapshot of the Tripadvisor reviews as of May 3rd 2025 for the Peak Tram, The Peak Tower and also the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, all 3 are owned and operated by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels Group, the Hotel has a much better rating than the Peak Tram and the Peak Tower.
I wonder if they have ever looked at the Tripadvisor reviews like this side by side, i think not and the reason the Hotel gets better reviews is that it has a lot of competition in the luxury hotel sector, the Peak Tram and Peak Tower have very little in the way of competition and it shows in the reviews, if you have no competition to speak of then you become complacent and you really do not care about improving things.
At the end of the day I think they could certainly do something to make things better for the people using the Peak Tram and the Peak Tower and it will cost them peanuts to implement queueing cams! I do not think for one second that they will go for it.
click on the image to enlarge
This is the iconic Peak Tram (the new green 210 capacity trams where introduced in 2022), I have been on it many thousands of times since January 1972 and let me be clear, I love the PeakTram, to me it is something quite unique and it has a history going back to 1888.. it is quite simply iconic.
I also have a sense of pride when I take guests on this iconic mode of transport but in the past 10 years the lines to use the Peak Tram have got totally out of hand and whilst it pains me to say so, it can be a thoroughly miserable experience for most people and guess what I am pretty sure that no one cares and by that I am talking about the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels Group which owns the Peak Tram and the Peak Tower and our Hong Kong Government Tourism Bureaucrats who should surely be aware of the problem
You need to read my blog post and my insider tip to skip the Peak Line queues, link is above
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This is the Peak Tram Terminus on Garden Road where you take the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak and one problem is that you have no idea how many people are queueing inside of the Peak Tram Terminus, however you can take a wild guess it there are queues outside the Terminus which holds 1,300 people.
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This is the very smart interior of the Peak Tram Terminus on Garden Road, it can hold 1,300 people in airconditioned comfort (standing of course!)
The capacity is 210 people on the tram with a frequency of the tram being every 15 - 20 minutes at best, do the math, you are looking at waiting for 60 - 90 minutes to get on the tram on most days of the year depending on the time of course - again read my blog post (link above) on ways to avoid the lines.
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… and naturally to control the crowds only 210 people can crowd onto the platform where you board the Peak Tram and trust me it is a quite horrible experience as people push and shove to get on so they can snag the best seats.
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So you are now at Victoria Peak, it is time to go down and I am guessing that most people purchase a return ticket - You can see on the image above taken outside the terminus at the Peak Tower at Victoria Peak, if there are 500 people in a line (very common after 2pm every day) you are going to have a serious problem.
At best at any one time you can fir 250 into this small space, everyone else is outside (not fun in the summer) amazingly in the total renovation of the entire Peak Tram system that finished in 2022, there was NO change to the amount of people that could fit into this space and again, it can be a quite horrible experience with a lot of pushing and shoving and lots of quite rude people.
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I took this image in 2019 when the whole Victoria Peak experience was diminished by overtourism, I never thought it could get worse than this, it has, these mob scenes of people waiting for the Peak Tram are now more frequent and much worse than 2019.
I witnessed this first hand on May 1st 2025.
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