TNAG-0770-FCO40-974-Construction-of-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 127

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Control of passenger movements in Central with an on-street system was seen as a major problem. Passenger volumes are very much higher at this location than anywhere else in the corridor. Whilst passengers will suffer the additional walk times to/ from underground platforms, this disadvantage is considered to

be outweighed by the substantially better provision that can be

made for such important facilities as ticket purchase, as well as the creation of a safer and more pleasant waiting environment

for the large volumes of passengers.

Accordingly, it was concluded that the early development of a

short central tunnel section would be an important component

of the LRT system.

Light Rail Vehicles and Trams

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The nature of strategy development is inevitably iterative: having established the outline of an LRT network configuration,

attention must be turned again to the type of vehicle envisaged.

Certain key questions remain to be answered especially regarding

vehicle dimensions, and these in turn will lead to a more detailed

examination of the network alignment.

Both LRT and upgraded tramway systems were seen to be financially

viable. The evaluation of options demonstrated the advantages of

LRT over an upgraded tramway, but before progressing further with

the LRT concept, it is worth re-examining precisely what are the

distinctions being drawn between Tram and LRT and ensuring that

no practical problems are being overlooked.

The evaluation result in favour of LRT reflects the basic costs

involved in both systems. The double deck trams are cheaper, both

to buy and operate, yet, despite this, and the inclusion of tunnel

capital costs in the LRT schemes, the LRT system performs better

in cost-benefit terms. This indicates the importance of being

able to implement tunnel sections with LRT, where they are needed,

since on the on-street sections there is not a great deal of

difference between the two systems in terms of performance.

value of retaining the flexibility to tunnel in Western and the

case for tunnels in Central has already been noted.

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The