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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, at a media session on bus route rationalisation after his meeting with the chairmen and vice chairmen of the District Councils at the Central Government Offices today (March 7):
Reporter: Mr Cheung, can you explain? You said the representatives of the District Councils were very supportive. What have you decided to do? And how are you going to convince the travelling public who basically want direct routes? Whatever you are doing, how long is it going to take ...?
Secretary for Transport and Housing: This morning's meeting with the chairmen, vice chairmen of the District Councils basically provides an opportunity for the Government to outline its plan on rationalisation of franchised bus routes. We intend to adopt a new approach with two components. First, we will use an area approach in examining the optimisation of bus routes. In the past, most of the time perhaps we looked at individual bus routes. But now we would like to adopt an area approach whereby we can convince the local communities that, overall speaking, the new arrangement will benefit local residents better - by eliminating overlapping routes, by redirecting some of the routes so as to serve more people and by eliminating under-utilised routes - and use the spare resources for either installation of new routes or increasing the frequency of service level of existing routes. We would like to present a more holistic picture. The advantage of rationalisation is not just to improve service to the public or local traffic; it will also help to eliminate unnecessary roadside pollution, which is the subject of a recent Director of Audit's Report.
At the meeting, all the district leaders have expressed support to this direction. They have also reminded the Government that we should make sure that we would improve passenger transfer arrangements and facilities and this is something that we would certainly pursue because this is the second component of our new strategy.
Reporter: How many routes will be eliminated eventually or merged? And how many interchanges will you expect to come up? How are you going to convince the travelling public to agree to this kind of interchange system?
Secretary for Transport and Housing: At this point when we say rationalisation or rearrangement of bus routes we are not saying that bus routes will only be eliminated or the frequency will only be reduced, because reorganisation of bus routes also includes the addition of new routes to meet identified needs and also improving services including the improvement of frequency. So it's a holistic package that we will put forward to District Councils. And we hope that by highlighting the overall advantage of the proposed package, local residents will have less worry. And I think we will take on board any concern about frequency or the need for routes to serve areas where there's clearly a demand for it. At the end of the day, the franchised buses are to serve the public.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript of remarks.)
Ends/Thursday, March 7, 2013
Issued at HKT 18:06
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