Chairman's Statement (Continued)
BUS PRIORITY SCHEMES
Although traffic congestion is a major cause of lost journeys, causing inconvenience to passengers and problems for our scheduling staff, no new bus priority schemes have been introduced on Hong Kong Island during the last year. We believe that Government should devote more efforts to design and implement schemes to reduce traffic delays continually experienced by buses. We support the introduction of the automatic toll collection system at the Aberdeen Tunnel and look forward to its introduction at the Cross Harbour Tunnel.
INLAND LOT 5532, TSAT TSE MUI ROAD, AND INLAND LOT 7178, KING'S ROAD, NORTH POINT
During the year the Group pursuant to the resolution of the shareholders of the Company in December 1991, completed the sale of the sites at Tsat Tse Mui Road, North Point and at King's Road, North Point to a joint venture company which is 60 per cent owned by Swire Properties Limited and 40 per cent owned by the Group and which was established to purchase and develop the sites for residential and commercial purposes. The full consideration of HK$980 million has been received.
A revised Master Layout Plan for redevelopment of the sites was prepared and resubmitted to the Town Planning Board în order to take advantage of planning improvements achievable as a result of increased height limits. The Town Planning Board has approved the revised Master Layout Plan and construction work for the foundations has commenced.
The joint venture should enable the Group to share in future profits arising from redevelopment of the sites through the Group's 40 per cent equity interest.
FUTURE OUTLOOK
The Governor in Council has granted to the Company a new franchise for two years from 1st September, 1993 for certain specified routes. 26 routes contained in the existing franchise have been granted by the Government by tender to another operator. To counteract any detrimental effect this may have on our bus operations we are currently studying in detail the forecast effects of this reduction of routes and developing a strategy to achieve optimum operating efficiency.
There has been no significant improvement in traffic flow and increasing traffic congestion is expected to have a deleterious effect on our services. The slow progress of our buses along congested thoroughfares such as King's Road, Hennessy Road, Queen's Road East and Queen's Road Central seriously disrupts our services and reduces operating efficiency. As noted last year even the Island Eastern Corridor Expressway is seriously congested in the Causeway Bay area especially during peak hours.
On the positive side we have recently introduced more air-conditioned buses into service to offer a higher quality of service to passengers and future route developments will involve the introduction of yet more air-conditioned services and the implementation of new routes to serve new housing estates.
APPRECIATION
The Directors appointed by the Governor under the Public Bus Services Ordinance were the Commissioner for Transport, Mr. Gordon SIU Kwing-chue, J.P., and the Deputy Secretary for Transport (Transport Services), Mr. Andrew LEUNG Kin-pong, J.P.. On behalf of the shareholders and my fellow Directors I would like to express our appreciation of their participation in the deliberations of the Board.
In conclusion, I would like to thank our loyal staff for their hard work and dedication to serving the travelling public during a very difficult and challenging year.
Hong Kong, 9th November, 1992
7
NGAN Shing-kwan Chairman
Page 10Page 11