ENG-1962 — Page 295

PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

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Fares are charged at a flat rate for any distance over any route and are 20 cents first class, and 10 cents second class; the maximum distance is 63 miles. The company also issues monthly tickets, and concession fares are given to children, students and Services per- sonnel. The company has taken a leading place in providing welfare facilities for its employees. These include free medical and dental services, entertainment, rest rooms, sport and low rent housing.

The Peak Tram. The Peak Tramways Co Ltd runs a funicular railway service up the Peak, which rises steeply behind the central district of Victoria. The company was formed in 1888 to provide transportation for residents of the Old Peak Hotel, which no longer exists. The original haulage equipment was steam driven, but in 1925 the tramway was modernized and the machinery changed to a system of haulage of the mining type which, with modification, is still used.

Modern lightweight locally built aluminium cars, drawn along tracks by nearly two miles of steel cable, carry about 1,750,000 people up the mountain each year. The cars seat 72 passengers and two of them can carry 850 people up and down the Peak in an hour. The tramway takes passengers up to an altitude of 1,305-feet above sea level, and the steepest part of the track has a gradient of one in two. It is reputed to be the steepest funicular railway in the world using a steel wire rope as its sole means of haulage.

Taxis and Hire Cars. The Road Traffic (Taxis and Hire Cars) Regulations, 1960, provide for the registration and licensing of taxis for use specifically on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon and in the New Territories. The conditions under which they may be used, and the fares charged, vary with each area. On Hong Kong Island taxis carry four or five and fares are $1.50 for the first mile and 20 cents for every one-fifth of a mile thereafter or 25 cents for every quarter mile thereafter, depending on the type of taximeter in use. A taxi service limited to journeys to and from the Peak on Hong Kong Island carries three passengers at a rate of $1 a mile and 20 cents for each quarter mile thereafter. The number of taxis on the Island increased to 631 during the year. In Kowloon there are small and large taxis for either three, four or five passengers respectively. The fare charged by all