The Transport Office was founded in 1965 within the Colonial Secretariat, initially with a staff of 23. The office was set up in response to the territory's worsening traffic problems, and was modelled after the systems in Britain and other Commonwealth countries, with the new department taking responsibility for vehicle registration and driver licensing. In 1968, it was spun off as a separate government department, and was renamed as the Transport Department. In 1974, the department's headquarters moved from the Blake Block on
Queensway to the new
Murray Road Multi-storey Car Park Building. Around the same time, the department's Chinese name changed from "" to "" to avoid confusion with the similar Chinese name of the Traffic Branch of the
Royal Hong Kong Police. In 2019, the Transport Department headquarters moved from
Immigration Tower to the new West Kowloon Government Offices in
Yau Ma Tei. In November 2020, it was reported that in 2019, the Transport Department changed one option of vehicle license plate searches from "others" to "other traffic and transport related matters," eliminating the ability of reporters to conduct license plate searches. Because of the change,
RTHK reporter Bao Choy was charged with violating the Road Traffic Ordinance while producing a documentary on the
2019 Yuen Long attacks. In January 2021, the Transportation Department announced a change to the system, where vehicle owners will be notified if their license plate is looked up. Journalists had previously used the tool for investigations, including to discover illegal structures at homes of senior government officials. In response,
Carrie Lam defended the change, and claimed that "So I really don't see how this would undermine the work of the media, and hence I do not see why the media should be exempted from the administrative procedure that the Transport Department has put in place." ==Role and responsibilities==