ENG-1979 — Page 37

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ENTER THE MTR

in good stead when, in the mid 1980s, the number of daily passenger journeys is expected to reach one million on the MIS, with the Tsuen Wan extension adding a further 800,000. These figures will make the railway the most heavily utilised in the world. The London Underground is 15 times as long, but carries only just over 1.5 million passengers a day. When the full MTR system is operational, 40 per cent of all homes and 50 per cent of work places will be within 10 minutes' walk of an MTR station,

All stations have a fully-automatic fare collection system the first in Hong Kong to serve users of public transport. It was manufactured to MTR specifications and includes more than a thousand pieces of equipment such as ticket-issuing machines, change machines, and entry and exit gates. The key to the system is a plastic, magnetically- encoded ticket, the size of a credit card, containing such information as its value and the date, time and place of its issue. Fares range from $1 to $3, in 50-cent increments. For all journeys in Kowloon the maximum fare is $2, while on the cross-harbour section $2 is the minimum. An undertaking has been given to hold fares to the same level during 1980 and, hopefully, during 1981 as well.

Once on board the aluminium cars, passengers are whisked underneath the city's jostling road traffic - or suddenly above it on huge concrete viaducts. Speed and utility are paramount, each car being designed to accommodate 327 passengers standing, and 48 sitting on stainless steel seats. At present all trains are made up of four cars, but this will be increased to six later on, and to eight by the mid-1980s. On each car, five pairs of doors enable passengers to board and alight swiftly, while the open layout of the interior allows freedom of movement from one end of the train to the other. Wide, covered vestibules connect all the cars, and only the end ones have operators' cabs.

Safety and Security

As a result of the government's insistence on particular attention being paid to the structural and operational safety of the railway system, Britain's Railway Inspectorate was continuously consulted throughout the various stages of design. In addition, during the later stages of construction and installation, a railway inspecting officer carried out independent inspections of the railway and its organisation, on behalf of the government, to ensure that the railway was safely ready for commissioning. For railway operations, regulations provide for the government to appoint inspectors to investigate any accident occurring on the railway. The appointment of a railway inspecting officer in such cir- cumstances will ensure independent investigation and reports.

The railway has installed one of the most advanced computer control and train opera- tion systems in the world, and with it achieves automatic handling in three crucial areas: operations, supervision, and safety. The heart of the computer network is the control centre at the corporation's Kowloon Bay depot. From there, the staff have overall control of operations, assisted by mimic diagrams, TV displays, and radio and telephone links. The automatic protection system ensures 'fail-safe' control of all routine train movements to prevent collisions. The automatic train operation system provides fully-automatic control between stations. This ensures smooth, efficient operation, and minimises energy consumption. It also strictly controls journey time, motoring, coasting and braking.

One of the major tasks facing the operating department of the corporation was to bring several hundred staff members, with no previous knowledge or experience of underground railways, to a state of readiness that would enable them to run the railway with a high degree of efficiency, and to deal with incidents and emergencies quickly, safely, and with a minimum of inconvenience to passengers. Visits by corporation officials