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

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

The Immigration Department estimates the city will see some 11.38 million travellers, including SAR residents and visitors, between this Saturday and February 23.

The department expects the majority of the travellers, or around 9.52 million, will opt for land boundary control point crossings.

It added the peak traffic time would be on Saturday and next Sunday, when around 636,000 and 663,000 travellers, respectively, could head for the crossing points.

Traffic at the Lo Wu, Lok Ma Chau Spur Line and Shenzhen Bay checkpoints would be heavy, with around 200,000 to 156,000 passengers on average each day, it said in a statement.

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 Force, the Customs and Excise Department and the MTR Corporation, would also be set up at the Lo Wu checkpoint to facilitate traffic flows.