192
COMMUNICATIONS
Within the urban areas both bus companies charge two fares. The lower fare is 10 cents and the length of this stage is roughly one mile. Travel exceeding this distance within the urban area costs 20 cents for any distance which may be up to seven miles. There is provision for school children's and other concessionary fares.
Hong Kong Tramways Limited operate an electric tramway service on the Island. The track, the gauge of which is 34 feet, runs between Kennedy Town and Shau Kei Wan, with a branch line around the race course in Happy Valley. All routes pass through the city of Victoria. The tramcars are four-wheeled double-deckers, with single staircases, and are designed for single-ended working, the termini having turning circles. The operating current is 500 volts direct.
The average daily service of cars run in 1964 was 152. This gave a car every two minutes in each direction on all routes. Through the city area the minimum frequency was a car every 31 seconds in each direction. The number of passengers carried was 183 million, a decrease of eight million or 4.2 per cent on 1963.
Fares are charged at a flat rate for any distance over any route and are 20 cents first class and 10 cents third class, the maximum length of a route being 64 miles. The company also issues monthly and concessionary tickets.
The Peak Tramways Company Limited runs a funicular railway service up the Peak. The present haulage system is the mining type and has been in use since 1925. The tramcars are drawn along the track by nearly two miles of steel cable and carried 2.1 million passengers during the year. The tramway climbs up to an altitude of 1,305 feet above sea level and the steepest part of the track has a gradient of one in two. It is reputed to be the steepest funic- ular railway in the world using a steel wire rope as its sole means of haulage.
Taxis are licensed for specific use on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon or the New Territories and conditions and fares vary with each area.
On the Island fares are $1.50 for the first mile and 20 cents for every fifth or 25 cents for every quarter of a mile thereafter. The number of taxis at the end of the year remained at 680. In Kowloon the fare is $1 for the first mile and 20 cents for