Passenger Facilities
The programme for erecting shelters for passengers waiting at bus stops continued during the year at various locations throughout Hong Kong Island.
Buses have now been fitted with a repeater light by the exit door to indicate to alighting passengers that the bell has already been rung.
Our "hotline" telephone service which was introduced in November 1985 has been very popular with passengers making travel enquiries.
Inland Lot 5532, Tsat Tse Mui Road, North Point
The site, with an area of 5,890 square metres (63,400 square feet) has a virtually unrestricted lease and forms part of a comprehensive redevelopment area under the North Point Outline Zoning Plan.
Negotiations have now commenced with developers for the disposal, or redevelopment through joint-venture, of this site. If these negotiations are successful, shareholders will be advised further.
Future Outlook
Despite the patronage losses already suffered, there is scope for expansion of our bus operations over the next few years. New bus routes will be introduced shortly to serve the new Lei Tung Estate on Ap Lei Chau, and further service improvements are planned for Southern District throughout 1987 and 1988. Existing services in the Chai Wan area will also be augmented as new estates open up there.
Further expansion will be needed on cross-harbour bus services in order to cater for a significant increase in capacity planned for the KCR as cross-harbour buses perform a useful feeder role for the KCR at Kowloon Station, Hung Hom. For passengers arriving at Hung Hom, the cross-harbour bus services are the most convenient mode for reaching Hong Kong Island.
We are very concerned, however, about the deleterious effects of traffic congestion on our bus services. Despite the existence of the MTR Island Line, traffic congestion in Causeway Bay and Wan Chai is still at an unacceptably high level. We had hoped that the reduction in revenue resulting from the loss of passengers to the MTR would have been partially offset by lower operating costs as a consequence of a significant decrease in traffic congestion, but our buses are still encountering traffic delays in the vicinity of the approach roads to the cross-harbour tunnel and along Hennessy Road. It appears that Government has no means of solving this problem any earlier than 1989 when the Eastern Harbour Crossing is expected to come into use. Since there has been a dramatic improvement in traffic flow along King's Road following the opening of the Island Eastern Corridor, we would suggest that Government's efforts in the future would be better directed towards expansion of the road network rather than expansion of the MTR system if congestion is to be reduced.
The existence of four principal public transport modes serving the north shore "corridor" of Hong Kong Island, namely bus, tram, minibus and MTR, has resulted in overall surplus capacity. With Government displaying no interest in reducing the number of minibuses the most inefficient user of road space out of the three surface-running modes become necessary to rationalise our bus services to cater for the reduced passenger demand.
it has
These rationalisation measures comprise reductions in frequency on some routes and complete withdrawal of other routes. However, frequency reductions may lead to unattractively low service levels which in turn could cause further loss of passengers. On the other hand, complete withdrawal of some routes may meet with public objection. In these circumstances, it is not possible to reduce the kilometres operated in line with the decrease in patronage. As a result of this, the average load factor decreases whilst the average cost per passenger increases, thus inevitably putting pressure on fares.
Despite our financial difficulties, the Government recently publicised its new guidelines on competition between buses and railways. We consider these guidelines to be unfair, in that they fail to take account of the fact that our company operates many loss-making but "socially-desirable" services which already deplete our profitability. Furthermore, these guidelines ignore the fact that our services face serious competition from red and green minibuses which have no obligation to run loss-making routes and are not subject to a profit control scheme. In view of the above, unless CMB is permitted
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