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Following is a question by the Hon Lau Kong-wah and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Ms Eva Cheng, at the Legislative Council meeting today (December 9):
Question:
Regarding the fare collection systems for roads and tunnels, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) given that at present, users of the auto fare collection system for roads and tunnels operated by the Autotoll Limited are required to pay a monthly administration fee of $35 and a deposit of $150 when opening an account, whether it knows if there is room for downward adjustment of the fees;
(b) whether it knows if the authorities concerned have signed with the aforesaid company agreements that granted the latter exclusive franchise; if they have, of the reasons; and
(c) given the growing popularity of the public making purchases with Octopus cards, whether the authorities will reconsider installing Octopus systems at the various tolled roads and tunnels for motorists to choose for use?
Reply :
President,
My replies to the three parts of the question are as follows:
(a) According to the response of the Autotoll Limited (Autotoll) to the Government's enquiry about the issue, the purpose of collecting a deposit from customers when they open an account is to save the company from any financial loss in case customers lose the tags or fail to return the tags after termination of the Autotoll service. The deposit has been decreased from the initial $300 to the current $150 and is refundable upon service cancellation.
Autotoll has also indicated that its service is supported mainly by charging customers a monthly administration fee of $35, which was set 11 years ago and has not been adjusted since then. Autotoll considers that the deposit for the tags and the monthly administration fee cannot be adjusted downward given the current operating environment.
(b) The Government has not entered into any agreement with Autotoll. Under the Management, Operation and Maintenance contracts of all Government tolled tunnels and roads, the Government requires the contractors to provide automatic toll collection services. These contractors have arranged Autotoll to provide such services as it is currently the only provider of such services in Hong Kong.
(c) The Government keeps an open mind and encourages the introduction of new automatic toll collection systems for tunnels and roads. We have been liaising with the Octopus Cards Limited (OCL) the introduction of the Octopus toll collection system for tunnels and roads. The Transport Department is discussing with OCL the technical feasibility of their proposed toll collection system and how such system could be integrated with tunnel traffic management, so as to provide motorists with another toll payment choice and enhance toll collection efficiency.
Ends/Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Issued at HKT 15:55
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