The government on Thursday urged all travellers, including those from Hong Kong, to plan ahead and avoid busy days, as it estimated total arrivals and departures through the city's border crossings during the upcoming Chinese New Year festive period to reach almost 11.4 million.

The official Lunar New Year holiday on the mainland begins on Sunday and lasts for nine days.

The Immigration Department estimates some 11.38 million arrivals and departures, including SAR residents and visitors, between this Saturday and February 23.

The department expects 9.52 million of them to be made through various land-border crossings.

Officials said they expect peak outbound traffic this Saturday – with 636,000 departures – and peak inbound traffic on February 22, with 663,000 arrivals.

They also said traffic at the Lo Wu, Lok Ma Chau Spur Line and Shenzhen Bay checkpoints would be heavy during the festive period, with average daily crossings hitting 200,000, 187,000 and 156,000 respectively.

The department said all checkpoints would maintain existing operating hours during the holiday, with Lok Ma Chau/Huanggang and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge ports sticking to their usual round-the-clock operational schedule.

To cope with the increasing heavy traffic, it said more manpower had been deployed and that they included extra security guards to manage the crowds.

Residents can also search "Easy Boundary" online, a one-stop platform on immigration clearance launched by the Security Bureau, to get more border-crossing information, including the average waiting time for passengers, private vehicles and cross-border shuttle buses, according to the department.

A joint command centre, launched by the police, the Customs and Excise Department and the MTR Corporation, would also be set up at the Lo Wu checkpoint to facilitate traffic flows.