Year
Population No. of buses: Double-Deck Single-Deck 244 Mileage 10mm Increase (%) Passengers 87m Increase (%)
FAR ECONO
STERN
REVIEW
-Operating Statistics-
C. M. B.
1959 1960 1961 1962 2.9m 3 3.15m 5.53m)
K.M.B.
1959 1960 1961
1962
300 307 11m 12m 10 9
Tramways Average Daily No. of Car Passengers
1960
2.9m 3 3.15m 3.53m 245 296 345 395? 325 207 267 368 374 13.5m 24.3m 29.8mm 35m 38.75m 12.5
22.6 17.5 10,7 100m 120m 134m 295m 375.5m 436.5m 482.5m
15 20 11.7
27.3 16.25 10.5
1959
1961
1962
138 (72.5m
112 175,8m
143 137m
146 189m
Railway Passengers
5.19m
5.89m
5.97m
6.23m
odious demeanour and it must be said that some of the com- plaints have justice in them, and would arise on half-empty buses. But much of the public resentment against the crews is due to the fact that they, as the company's visible repre- sentatives and rule-enforcers, are the ones who keep people off the buses; anyone who prevents you from boarding the bus of your choice', no matter how reasonably he might do it, is a monster. It is easy to hate him, but rather difficult to hate the nebulous company behind him for not providing enough vehicles.
In turn, it is difficult to say that one would not become rather snappish oneself if confronted for hour after hour by hordes of pushing, scrambling passengers; the phenomenon is not unknown in quiet offices and shops. Very few crew- members can really enjoy frustrating would-be passengers, and the natural human reaction towards someone one has hurt is dislike. In the absence of a sufficient service, crews and public must grow further and further apart.
In addition to this, one cannot but feel that the conditions under which crews work are ill-suited to dispose them well towards their jobs. The arrangements of their hours and meal breaks (20 minutes) are unsatisfactory, and terminal facilities are practically non-existent. At the Jordan Road terminus, for instance, a small area of public pavement in the lee of the ferry building serves as canteen, rest-room and rubbish-heap. There is no toilet. If better conditions for
crews would mean a better atmosphere on buses, then the companies should make constant efforts to improve them.
If there is one member of the crew who frequently deserves castigation, it is the driver. Not every one is bad, of course, but those who are can be frightening. They drive too fast, throw their vehicles around as if they were minicars and give little way to other road-users.
Some of the high speed and furious braking (not the best treatment for double-deckers) is due to the tight schedules; drivers ignore stops in order to have some time at the end of the trip. More vehicles would enable speeds to be reduced, and the Police could pay some attention to infractions of the traffic rules without disorganising the public's movement; and improvements in wages and conditions might attract more and better drivers, so that the Companies could gradually weed out the dare-devils and the simply bad ones.
Given sufficient vehicles, schedules would be easier, crowding would be less, the workers happier and the riders not so resentful. If the conductor could be the man who helps you on rather than pushing you off, a great deal of the friction would vanish in a short time. The supply of the
October 31, 1963
vehicles resite for carrying on effectively the service is the responsibility of the companies, a responsibility which has not been properly discharged.
Do time-tables mean anything in What of efficiency? practice? Table I gives the results of 75 minutes' observation it one terminus one morning. Selection of time and place was random; I got on a bus, was carried willy-nilly to Jordan Road concourse, and two or three minutes later started noting The intervals between successive actual departure times. departures are the significant figures; I defy anyone to deduce accurately any of the frequencies from the record.
The high-frequency routes (4A, 12, 11) have been omitted, as small errors in timing would unjustly introduce large percentage errors in the intervals. In any column one can find gaps and bunching. This particular terminus contrasts most unfavourably with the CMB operations at the other end of the vehicular ferry run; there buses are sent off by warning lights, and presumably achieve the kind of efficiency that is expected.
Hongkong Affairs!
281
age 301 of 344
The 15B bus is supposed to leave every 10 minutes. The times shown for it in the table are illuminating. Later that day I caught a 15B; it left at 1.26 p.m. I have waited for 14 minutes in a 15B at its outer terminus, and I have boarded one which left 7 minutes after the previous one.
Table II gives major operating statistics of the two Com- panies over the past four years, as well as some for the trams and trains. CMB has a much smaller job to do than KMB, since the trams carry well over half the load on the island, but as the capacity of the latter has been about reached the buses will have to take up the expansion from year to year. The rail contribution is slight and specialised.
CMB's annual mileage increase became greater than the passenger increase last year, and this is true of the last two years for KMB; but these figures probably reflect the expan- sion of longer-distance routes rather than more room on board. Since the Companies have gone public (a provision of the renewing Ordinance) the money is being spread more widely; but in any case organisations which do such large-scale jobs are entitled to profit, if they give the service with the exclusive franchises re- quire of them. If the services were satis- factory, I do not think many would quarrel with the profits.
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More Vehicles Needed
-
The two Companies do undoubtedly perform a huge task; last year they shifted a total of 616,500,000 passengers (every one of us must have taken 175 rides in that time), which yields a figure of 1,700,000 per day half the total population! They have great maintenance problems, especially in the hot weather, when old buses on New Territories routes, running for long periods, do some- times break down. If there were enough vehicles in the garage,
an
of course, this situation would be greatly eased. It cannot be used as
excuse for in- adequacy.
Why Government has remained so apathetic on the question is a mystery; the problem has been obvious for some time, even before the renewal of the pre- sent system.
It must be admitted, however, that there would be little point in transferring the enterprises to other people; the failure has been one of past management policy, and though the entrepreneurs seem now to be awake to their responsibilities the damage done is proving very difficult to To reinstate free competition repair. would be impossible; how could anyone begin to compete with KMB, for in- unless they were given all the New Territories routes, perhaps?
not be free But that would petition, either.
stance
com-
The population grows and so does the demand for transport. The New Ter- ritories will never develop unless people can move from there to Kowloon easily; commerce and industry begin to be affected if travel becomes slower. Perhaps it is later thage 30 of 344
282
Hongkong Affairs
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