TNAG-1729-FCO40-2442-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 238

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are the adults, not students, throughout the summer

months, as shown by statistics. Students

normally travel earlier than 8 am to school.

virtually most of the congestion is

In

fact

caused by adults during peak hours, and the past

pattern has shown that the peak seasons are from

June to September, which is the peak of the peak in

and this is precisely where we must apply this

mechanism now to solve the overcrowding and safety

problem.

the year,

MR. SOHMEN: We are dealing here with human nature and

trying to break ingrained habits. In my opinion would it

not be better, instead of using the whip, to use the carrot,

and reduce the fares prior to 8 am?

The argument that the MTRC will be losing money does not

really wash if we are trying to get the passengers into

other modes of transport anyway so they are not really

that losing any money. I would suggest to use the incentive

of cheaper fares before 8 am

would have a more dramatic

effect than penalising the travellers after 8

am.

SECRETARY FOR TRANSPORT: Sir, the revenue forgone if the

corporation were to reduce non-peak fares would be almost

$2 billion because the large bulk

of

income would come

from the non-congestion period rather than the congestion