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Wednesday, May 13, 1:10:04 [ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4 ]

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Date Posted: 20/02/04 19:04
Author: 新界人
Subject: Thank you
In reply to: Jacob 's message, "Re: 交通費" on 20/02/04 16:47

Thank you for your comments. I guess the reason why the government does not suggest merging KCRC and MRTC is because of the fear of bureaucracy in public sector. The history of British Rail tells. BR was a dominating government owned rail operator in 1960s. The lack of efficiency had led to the drop of revenue and high cost of operation. The parliament then decided to de-nationalise the Railway by splitting it into many smaller regional rail operators. They thought it could introduce more competition. However, this had led to the poor maintenance of the rail track and the signalling system in 1970s and 1980s. The government then introduced a public company - Rail Track to keep the system ‘up-to-date’. Rail Track failed to do its task also because of the lack of competition. The average speed of the inter-city trains in the UK now is 120mph (average inter-city train speed in Japan is about 250mph; China demands an average of 350mph for its new inter-city trains). As the result, the British government is considering to re-nationalise its railway but to use a few nationalised railway operators instead of one (similar to the system in HK now). This will be submitted to the parliament for approval later this year.

The history of BR tells us that the merging of KCRC and MTRC may not be a good solution. It will result in a poor performance in terms of cost. Instead, it is believed that by introducing more competition between railways, it will ultimately improve the efficiency of our transport system as a whole. For example, there was no reduction of fare between KCRC and MTRC if you use West Rail travel from Yuen Long to Hong Kong Island via Nam Cheung Station. However, since KCRC had agreed with the bus operator that there would be reduction of fare, MRTC changed its attitude.

The current train system in HK has the advantages of a public sector and a private sector. It allows the development of non-profitable services like the Airport Express and the LRT. It also allows competition as well as co-operation. I believe when KCRC has fully expanded (say when the cross-harbour rail has been complete), there will be more competition between KCRC, MTRC and the bus operators. It will finally led to more co-operation between the two railway companies (as their routes are not as feasible as that of the buses).

The trend in the world is to have a sustainable development. The use of railway as the backbone of our city (44% of the total public transport trips by rail in 2010 as stated in the Strategic Transport Study in 1998) should be supported, as the use of trains is very efficient and environmental friendly. However, it should also be sustainable in terms of money, i.e. self-financed.

I support the STS in 1998 but I feel that the CEOs of KCRC and MTRC are a bit too ambitious. They only want to have a world class transport system. I think the government should pressurise the railway operator to cut its cost (say, to use less luxurious trains and to allow more delay). But will our citizens allow?

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