How Hong Kong’s MTR controllers keep 5 million daily commuters on track

In a busy 700 square metre control room in Tsing Yi at the heart of Hong Kong’s busy MTR network, 100 staff no longer dare to eat a particular dim sum dish after it became unexpectedly associated with bad luck.

From frontline controllers to Cheris Lee Yuen-ling, the MTR Corporation’s chief of operating and metro segment, not one of them is willing to risk eating glutinous rice with chicken for breakfast or lunch.

“It happened many years ago when a traffic controller was about to consume a piece of steamed glutinous rice [with] chicken – the one wrapped with a lotus leaf for breakfast,” Lee recalled.

“And then the system started to have many ad hoc situations. He could not have it until dinner. That’s why there is a joke [about] not to take this food for breakfast or for lunch; otherwise, you will have a busy day.”

The bustling control centre oversees 10 of the city’s train lines, but does not cover light rail services in Yuen Long and Tuen Mun or the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link.

Lee described the room in Tsing Yi station as the “brain” of Hong Kong’s rail network.