TNAG-0955-FCO40-1174-Legislation-for-traffic-on-roads-in-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 25

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becomes shorter since passenger waiting times are reduced. This pattern would be further accelerated by the introduction

of another mass mode carrier in the form of an Island

Line MTR, resulting in wasteful and uneconomical off-peak operation. In these circumstances it would be totally impossible for any mode to achieve a state of financial viability on the basis of a very short, sharp morning peak period passenger ridership pattern for five days of the week since weekend traffic along the Corridor is relatively low.

7.2 Effect on Recreational Bus Services

Since all of Hong Kong's popular beach resorts are located on the south side of Hong Kong Island, CMB has to expand consid- erably its summer weekend bus services between the North Shore and the South Shore of the Island for recreational purposes. Because bus ridership along the Island Corridor at weekends and on public holidays drops dramatically during the swimming

season CMB is able to fully utilize its bus fleet and

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personnel by transferring its surplus resources for use on recreational bus routes. For example fifty percent of CMB's existing Waterfront Road bus network is not required at weekends

and public holidays and the resultant surplus resources are transferred to good use for recreational outlets.

7.3 In this respect, CMB is similar to the HYF company which relies

on a healthy and profitable weekday cross-harbour ferry operation that it can prune at weekends and on public holidays in line with the normal weekend variation in commuter traffic, to support a vastly augmented outlying Island ferry operation for the con- venience of weekend trippers.

7.4 In the event of an Island Line MTR being built, it would seem

unlikely that CMB would be left with a sufficiently large Island Corridor bus network which it could draw upon to service the south side of the Island seasonal recreational bus service

requirements. This would result in serious social implications. KMB does not have this situation on such a large scale in Kowloon

./15.