Green Minibus (GMB)

Hong Kong's public light buses split into two liveries that behave completely differently, and knowing which is which saves both money and confusion. The green minibus (綠色專線小巴, GMB) runs a fixed route on a scheduled headway for a fixed fare that the Transport Department itself sets and approves, route by route — essentially a smaller, nimbler layer of the franchised bus network. Its red counterpart operates more like a shared taxi: government does not regulate its routes, timetable, or price, and drivers adjust all three to demand as they go. As of September 2025, Hong Kong had 361 GMB routes (67 on Hong Kong Island, 83 in Kowloon, 211 in the New Territories) served by 3,357 licensed vehicles carrying roughly 1,329,100 passenger trips a day — more than double the red minibus network's ridership. Every seat counts literally: vehicles are licensed for a maximum of 16 or 19 seated passengers and standing is banned outright, with mandatory speed alarms and a driver-facing digital speedometer since 2012. On payment, the picture has changed from the old cash-only reputation — GMBs now accept Octopus card as their standard fare method, in contrast to red minibuses, where only a handful of vehicles are Octopus-equipped and cash still dominates. Where GMBs earn their keep is filling gaps the MTR simply doesn't reach: Sai Kung town has no MTR station at all, and GMB routes 1A (from Choi Hung) and 101M (from Hang Hau) are the direct minibus links tying the town to the rail network, alongside similar feeder routes into New Territories hillside estates and village clusters that full-size buses can't navigate on narrow, winding roads. Minibus fares generally run slightly higher than equivalent standard bus fares, but remain a fraction of a taxi and are often the only public option at all for these last-mile connections. Real pitfalls to know before boarding: many routes don't post a fixed printed timetable the way KMB or MTR do, so locals track departures by headway and app rather than a posted schedule; seatbelts must be worn (all seats are belted, and it's routinely enforced); and on the shrinking number of cash-fare routes, drivers don't always carry small change for large notes, so it pays to have close to exact fare ready.