**********************************************
Following is a question by the Hon Albert Chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Ms Eva Cheng, at the Legislative Council meeting today (December 19):
Question:
Recently, some members of the public have reflected to me that, on certain long-haul franchised bus routes, while they only need to pay section fares when boarding the bus at the end part of the bus journey, they have to pay full fares on the return journey even though they just ride for a short distance. As such, some passengers would rather spend time waiting for short-route buses which charge lower fares. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the respective numbers of existing long-haul franchised bus routes with and without section fares charged according to the distance travelled by the passengers (distance-based section fares);
(b) of the reasons for not providing distance-based section fares on some long-haul franchised bus routes; and
(c) whether it will consider reviewing the existing policy and require distance-based section fares to be provided on all long-haul franchised bus routes, so that short-haul passengers need not pay full fares when travelling on such routes; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
The Government has been encouraging bus companies to offer concessionary fares including section fares to reduce the travel expenses of the public, taking into account the overall economic condition and their operational situation.
(a) About 400 long-haul bus routes of 5km or above in Hong Kong have implemented section fare arrangement whereas 100 long-haul bus routes of 5km or above have not implemented such arrangement.
(b) The bus companies have not introduced section fares on some long-haul bus routes because they consider that these routes are not suitable for implementation of section fare arrangement as some of them are only slightly longer than 5km and some are recreation routes.
(c) As to whether and how section fare arrangement should be implemented on all long-haul routes, we consider that this is a commercial decision for the bus companies. The bus companies have indicated that this involves difficulties in deploying bus resources. On the one hand, the adoption of section fares across-the-board in the initial part of all long-haul bus routes may induce more short-haul passengers to take buses on long-haul routes. This would lengthen the journey time of long-haul passengers and the bus companies may need to deploy more buses to operate long-haul routes to cater for these short-haul passengers. On the other hand, they consider that some of the long-haul routes are only slightly longer than 5km or are recreation routes, and thus are not suitable for implementation of section fare arrangement.
Taking into account the above considerations, the bus companies consider it difficult to implement section fare arrangement on all long-haul bus routes. We consider that it is more appropriate for the bus companies to continue to determine whether and how section fare should be adopted on individual long-haul routes having regard to the operating condition of individual routes, the companies' financial situation and the distribution of passengers with a view to using bus service resources effectively.
Ends/Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Issued at HKT 14:01
NNNN
