During 1950 and 1951 the company has replaced its former wooden cars with new cars of improved design, all-metal construction, lighter and stronger than the old ones and having greater passenger- carrying capacity.
For the third year in succession the service carried more than a million passengers.
Bus Services
Bus services on the Island are maintained by the China Motor Bus Co., Ltd., operating a fleet of 151 vehicles. The total mileage run by buses on the Island was approximately 6.1 million and
The number of passengers carried were about 46.1 million.
passengers
carried per mile dropped from 8.2 in 1950 to 7.5 in 1951.
During the year three new services, one city and two suburban, were introduced, one between North Point and Possession Street, another between Shaukiwan and Shek O, and the third from Victoria to Stanley Fort.
On the
Services in Kowloon and in the New Territories mainland are provided by the Kowloon Motor Bus Co., Ltd., which has throughout 1951 continued its steady policy of improving its services. district runs the Company is still obliged to use several vans converted into buses, a relic of the immediate post-war days. It had been hoped to replace these by the end of the year but delays in delivery of new vehicles from the United Kingdom precluded this.
The
Unlike the figures for Hong Kong Island, the number of passengers carried on the mainland has continued to increase. Company's buses covered 144 million miles compared with 13 million the previous year and carried just under 145 million passengers compared with 1234 million in 1950, 90 million in 1949 and 56 million in 1948. Thirty new double-decker buses were added, bringing the total fleet up to 180, and at the end of the year a further 25 double-decker and 20 single-decker buses, to augment services and replace vehicles due for withdrawal, were on order from the United Kingdom.
Ferries
The "Star" Ferry Co., Ltd., operates a passenger ferry service across the narrowest part of the harbour, a distance of approximately one mile, from a point in the centre of Victoria to Tsim Sha Tsui at the southern extremity of Kowloon Peninsula. Six vessels are in service and operate daily for 19 hours. A five-minute service is maintained during the day and a regular service is maintained till well past midnight, the duration of the crossing being eight minutes.
99