TNAG-0853-FCO40-1063-Transport-policy-in-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 6

(d)

The concessions should be available to all school students aged twelve years and over up to a defined age limit (see paragraph 19) when travelling to and from schools operated or registered by the Director of Education. The concessions should not operate on Sundays and public holidays and during school holidays.

Neither students not included under (c) above nor students at the universities, the Polytechnic, and other tertiary level institutions should be entitled to concessionary fares, although these may be granted by companies on a commercial basis (the Kowloon Canton Railway (KCR) includes university students in its concession scheme).

(e)

The concession should be granted only by public transport companies on ordinary services and should not apply to luxury or personalised forms of transport.

(f)

Student fares should be half fare wherever possible, unless this would involve the use of 5-cent coins. fares in that case would normally be to the next 10 cents above.

The

It is further proposed that new arrangements embodying these principles should be brought into effect from the start of the next academic year, i.e. September 1979.

17

Legal advice is that by its control over fare structures, the Governor in Council can implement the proposal in paragraph 16(b) for all existing public transport modes except the tramway. However, at this stage, because it is thought appropriate to obtain Council's advice in principle before undertaking any arrangements, it is not possible to propose detailed schemes for each transport company. These will have to be settled on an individual basis and may be different in each case. For example, it may be that for practical purposes monthly passes rather than individual half fare tickets are preferable to some companies and not to others. All that has been done to date therefore is to advise the main companies affected by these proposals (CMB, KMB, HKT), that half rates should be continued.

18

There are special problems with the MTRC, detailed in paragraph 28, which will have to be given further consideration.

Proposed age level

19

One important issue is the age level to be adopted for com- pulsory concessions. A number of options have been considered, taking into account such factors as:

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