ENG-1999 — Page 307

TRANSPORT

The Long Win Bus Company Limited (LW) provides bus services for North Lantau and the new airport. At the end of 1999, a total of 159 buses were serving a total of 15 bus routes: all were air-conditioned buses and 159 were accessible to wheelchairs. The routes mainly linked the New Territories with Tung Chung and the new airport. LW also offers concessionary fares for children under 12 and elderly passengers on all routes.

To provide adequate public transport services in the new development areas in Tin Shui Wai/North and Tseung Kwan O/South, and as a measure to promote healthy competition in the franchised bus market, all existing franchised bus operators were invited to apply for the operation of new bus networks in the above two areas in July. After assessment of the applications, KMB and NWFB were selected to operate the route packages in Tin Shui Wai/North and Tseung Kwan O/South respectively.

Non-franchised Buses

Non-franchised bus services mainly provide residents' service and employees' service, and serve groups of tourists and students on a group-hire basis. They perform a supplementary role in the public transport system by providing services primarily during peak hours. At the end of 1999, there were 6 078 licensed non-franchised buses.

Minibuses

Hong Kong's minibuses are licensed to carry a maximum of 16 seated passengers. At the end of 1999, there were 6 451 licensed minibuses. Of these, 4 350 were public light buses (PLB), and 2 101 were private light buses. Private light buses are authorised to carry only group passengers and may not collect separate fares.

There are two types of PLBs: 'green' and 'red' minibuses. Green minibuses provide scheduled services with fixed routeing, fares, vehicle allocation and timetables stipulated by the Transport Department. There were 2 305 green minibuses operating 314 routes and carrying about one million passengers a day in 1999. Red minibuses are not required to operate on fixed routes or timetables and they may set their own fares. At the end of 1999, there were 2 045 red minibuses which carried 568 000 passengers daily.

A trial on the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), electricity or other cleaner fuels for minibuses will be carried out in 2000. If the trial is successful, operators will be encouraged to switch over to use the cleaner fuels.

Taxis

At the end of 1999, there were 15 250 urban taxis (coloured red), 2 838 New Territories taxis (green) and 50 Lantau taxis (blue), carrying a daily average of 1.1 million, 207 900 and 1 400 passengers respectively.

Steps were taken to further improve the quality of taxi services. One measure was to introduce relaxations for taxis at more restricted zones in order to strengthen their role as a personalised, door-to-door service. In 1999, restricted zones at 36 locations were relaxed to allow taxis to pick up and set down passengers. A legislative amendment is expected to be made in early January next year to provide for the introduction of taxi drop-off points at restricted zones. In this regard, five taxi drop- off points were identified in 1999 for introduction on a trial basis initially.

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