ENG-1972 — Page 197

COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSPORT

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Where on-street parking facilities are provided, it is the government's policy to ration the limited space available and to ensure a reasonable turn-over of short-term parkers by means of parking meters; a total of 7,300 meters have so far been installed. As part of the policy of rationing space, both on-street and in car parks, it was found necessary in July 1972 to increase parking fees by an average of 66.7 per cent and to extend the operation of some parking meters up to midnight and to weekends and public holidays.

Public Transport

Apart from the Kowloon-Canton Railway, whose activities are described earlier in this chapter, public transport is operated by private enterprise. There are five companies operating scheduled passenger services under ordinances which grant exclusive rights. They are: the China Motor Bus Company, and Hongkong Tramways Ltd which operate services on Hong Kong Island; the Kowloon Motor Bus Company (1933) Ltd which has the franchise in Kowloon and the mainland portion of the New Territories; the Hongkong and Yaumati Ferry Company, and the Star Ferry Company which operate ferry services on specific routes across the harbour and in the waters of Hong Kong. Appendix 32 lists the traffic carried by each of the undertakings for the three years up to 1972.

Buses

At the end of 1972, the Kowloon Motor Bus Company's fleet totalled 1,272 vehicles, comprising 906 double-deck buses and 366 single-deck buses. On order or under construction at the end of 1972, were 70 double-deck buses which will be added to the fleet during 1973-4. The fleet's total passenger-carrying capacity at the end of the year was 118,706. During the year, 501.2 million passengers were carried and 44.4 million miles were operated by the company's buses. At the end of 1972 there were 84 routes (47 in Kowloon, 34 in the New Territories, and three cross-harbour routes). ||

The company continued with the replacement of two-conductor operated buses with one-conductor buses and a start was made on the introduction of one-man operated buses on several urban routes. It is intended to convert all the New Territories routes to one-man operation during 1973.

Bus services on Hong Kong Island are operated by the China Motor Bus Co Ltd which has 261 double-deck and 235 single-deck buses. The total passenger- carrying capacity of the fleet at the end of 1972 was 38,124, an increase of 8.0 per cent over 1971. A general fare revision came into effect on July 1, 1972. This revision raised 73 per cent of existing fares, while 23 per cent remained unchanged and three per cent were reduced. The overall impact was an average 28 per cent increase in fares, mainly on suburban routes.

With the opening of the cross-harbour tunnel to traffic on August 3, 1972, the two major bus companies introduced three jointly operated services linking the urban areas of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. The services are one-man operated with