*******************
Following is a question by the Hon Chan Chi-chuen and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, in the Legislative Council today (May 21):
Question:
Earlier on, service disruptions of the MTR East Rail Line due to failures in the signalling system occurred one after another, and there were also similar service disruptions of the Ma On Shan Line. Under the existing requirements, the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL) is required to notify the Transport Department within eight minutes of any service disruption incident which has lasted for eight minutes or is expected to last for eight minutes or more. Moreover, according to the service performance arrangement (the Arrangement) under the Fare Adjustment Mechanism (FAM) of MTRCL, a fine will be imposed on MTRCL for any service disruption of 31 minutes or more, and the fines must be used for the provision of fare concessions to passengers. There are comments that despite making a profit as large as $13.2 billion last year and having frequent service disruptions, MTRCL has still managed to increase its fares by 3.6%, which reveals that there are problems with the existing mechanism. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) whether it knows the respective numbers of incidents of disruption in the services of the East Rail Line and Ma On Shan Line in the year ending April 2014, with a breakdown by railway line and duration of service disruption (i.e. (i) less than eight minutes, (ii) eight minutes to less than 31 minutes, and (iii) 31 minutes or more); among such incidents, of the respective numbers of those that were caused by (iv) equipment failures; (v) staff's behaviours; (vi) passengers' behaviours and (vii) inclement weather; the amount of fines to be paid by MTRCL for such disruptions;
(2) whether it knows if MTRCL has investigated if the signalling systems of the two aforesaid railway lines are ageing; if the investigation outcome is in the affirmative, whether MTRCL has any plans to replace the entire signalling systems; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(3) whether it knows if MTRCL has investigated if the ageing of the train systems and their parts as well as the failures of newly installed parts were involved in the aforesaid incidents; whether MTRCL has plans to replace the relevant systems as well as increase the number of maintenance staff and the frequency of inspections on such systems; if MTRCL has such plans, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; whether the authorities will consider requiring MTRCL to allocate a specified percentage of its operating expenditure to repair and maintenance work;
(4) whether the authorities will take any follow-up action (including imposition of fines on MTRCL) in respect of MTRCL's making public the service disruption incident of the East Rail Line on the 27th of last month only after it had occurred for nearly 20 minutes;
(5) whether it knows at present, how many minutes after a railway service has been disrupted will MTRCL provide free shuttle bus services for its passengers; in the year ending April 2014, of the respective numbers of times for which MTRCL provided free shuttle bus services during service disruptions of the two aforesaid railway lines;
(6) whether it will revise the existing Arrangement to stipulate the imposition of a fine for any railway service disruption lasting eight minutes or more, and to introduce a penalty arrangement for the progressive reduction of the salaries of MTRCL's management personnel according to the number of service disruptions; and
(7) whether it will review afresh the existing FAM of MTRCL to include the number of service disruptions as one of the considerations for the rate of fare adjustment, so as to avoid the situation of MTRCL raising its fares substantially despite frequent occurrence of railway service disruptions?
Reply:
President,
The operation of a safe, reliable and efficient railway service is paramount to the public transport system in Hong Kong. With respect to train service reliability, the number of incidents of 8 minutes or above caused by equipment failure or human factors was 143 in 2013, the lowest since the rail merger in December 2007. The number of incidents in the first quarter of this year was 31, lower than that over the same period of last year (i.e. 34). Despite not showing any downward trend in the safety and reliability of the MTR train service in accordance with the overall statistics, the Government considers that, under the service-oriented premise, immediate and in-depth investigation into every train service incident must be carried out by the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), followed by improvement measures to prevent future recurrence.
According to the "Service Performance Arrangement" under the new Fare Adjustment Mechanism (FAM) implemented since last year, a fine will be imposed on MTRCL for service disruptions of 31 minutes or above caused by equipment failure or human factors. Proceeds are put into a fare concession account and returned to passengers through the "10% Same Day Second Trip Discount" scheme the following year. "Exemption Events"(i.e. events outside MTRCL's control, such as those caused by passengers' behaviours and bad weather) are excluded under the arrangement.
My reply to Hon Chan Chi-chuen's question is as follows:
(1) Details of incidents of service disruption of 8 minutes or above on MTR East Rail Line (EAL) and Ma On Shan Line (MOL) in the year from May 1, 2013 to April 30, 2014 are set out in the table below. To facilitate other public transport operators in deploying their resources to help affected passengers, MTRCL is required to notify the Transport Department (TD) within 8 minutes on any railway service disruption incident which has lasted for 8 minutes or is expected to last for 8 minutes or more. The Government considers it reasonable to give MTRCL 8 minutes to assess the situation and determine if normal service can be resumed within 8 minutes. As for each service disruption of less than 8 minutes, MTRCL is not required to notify TD and maintain relevant statistics as the impact of such incidents to railway service is usually relatively milder.
Cause Duration of disruption
-------------- ------------------------------
8 - 30 31 minutes
minutes or above
EAL MOL EAL MOL
Equipment 21 1 3 0
failure
Human factors 3 0 0 0
Passengers' 21 2 3 0
behaviours or
external factors
(including bad
weather)
(i.e. causes
outside MTRCL's
control and
excluded from the
"Service Performance
Agreement")
-----------------------------------
Total 45 3 6 0
Under the "Service Performance Arrangement", MTRCL was fined a total of $4 million for the three EAL incidents caused by equipment failure as tabulated above.
(2) and (3) The existing signalling system of EAL was put into service in 1998, with a designed serviceable life of about 20 years. Generally speaking, the system can be used for over 20 years with proper routine repair/maintenance and component upgrade. The EAL signalling system will be upgraded in tandem with the Shatin to Central Link (SCL) project, which is expected to be fully completed in 2020. Currently, the contractor is carrying out the preliminary work, such as design, for the new signalling system under a contract granted in late 2012. As MOL commenced service in 2004, its signalling system is relatively newer, but it will also be modified in tandem with the SCL project to cater for train operation of the connection of MOL from Tai Wai with West Rail Line via East Kowloon, and the switching from the current 4-car trains to 8-car trains.
To ensure the high quality of service performance and maintain the good condition of the systems and components for train operation, MTRCL has in place a stringent repair/maintenance regime as well as a proper programme to upgrade and renew assets. On the repair/maintenance aspect, works are carried out by MTRCL in areas including civil engineering structures, railway tracks, signalling systems, power supply systems, overhead lines, passenger trains, and engineering trains, etc. These works include inspection, repair/maintenance, cleaning, and asset replacement. They are carried out in accordance with an established regular repair/maintenance schedule.
Each year, MTRCL invests over $5 billion to replace, upgrade and repair/maintain trains, railway assets as well as station facilities, with a view to maintaining a safe and reliable railway service. The amount in 2013 was $5.6 billion, around half of that year's expenditure on Hong Kong transport operations (around $8.4 billion) and related capital expenditure (around $2.7 billion), totalling $11.1 billion (Note 1) . Additional repair/maintenance staff are recruited by MTRCL from time to time to cater for operational needs, with the number of full-time staff concerned increasing from around 3 700 in 2009 to around 4 000 in 2013.
(4) In accordance with stipulations, MTRCL is required to notify TD within 8 minutes on any railway service disruption incident which has lasted for 8 minutes or is expected to last for 8 minutes or more. A train service disruption refers to an incident that leads to stoppage of train at an MTR station or a Light Rail stop, or on a section of a railway line. This notification arrangement enables preparatory work for emergency or support services to be planned and start as soon as possible.
Regarding the EAL incident on April 27, 2014, MTRCL notified TD within 8 minutes as required. Upon receipt of the notification from MTRCL, the Emergency Transport Co-ordination Centre of TD informed other major public transport operators immediately and requested them to monitor closely the needs of passengers and enhance services as necessary while maintaining close contact with MTRCL and the Police for carrying out proper crowd management. It is noted that on the day of the incident, MTRCL notified passengers of the EAL incident via station and train announcements.
In accordance with the current notification arrangement between TD and MTRCL, the Corporation has to notify TD as well as the media of any railway incident emergency. With regard to the EAL incident, TD has followed up with MTRCL and requested the Corporation to review the arrangement for notifying the media so that they can obtain information at first instance for release to the public.
(5) MTRCL has formulated free MTR shuttle bus deployment plans for railway incidents. The number of free MTR shuttle buses and the service level to be deployed during a railway incident will depend on which section of the railway line is involved and the seriousness of the situation. Generally speaking, according to the agreement between MTRCL and the Public Omnibus Operators Association (POOA)(Note 2), when free MTR shuttle bus service is needed, the POOA will arrange about 7 buses to provide service within 30 to 45 minutes after receiving MTRCL's notification; an additional 40 buses, if required, will be deployed within 1 to 1.5 hours; and about 100 buses in total after 2 hours. The actual number of buses to be deployed will depend on the extent of impact to train service and road traffic condition. Despite the limited carrying capacity of the free shuttle bus service as a supplementary measure, MTRCL will operate additional shuttle buses or modify the operating details of these bus services having regard to the actual situation so as to minimise the impact of railway service disruptions to passengers.
During the year as at April 2014, MTRCL provided shuttle bus service for EAL service disruptions on 7 occasions. As for MOL, there was no service disruption incident leading to the need to provide shuttle bus service.
(6) and (7) When introducing the arrangement to fine MTRCL for railway service disruption incidents subsequent to the FAM review in 2013, we made it clear to the Legislative Council that disruptions of a shorter duration should not be counted for this purpose in order not to put undue pressure on the frontline staff of MTRCL, causing situation of rushing their repair works to avoid penalty, putting quality or safety at risk.
As regards whether the remuneration of MTRCL's senior management should be reduced in the event of serious service disruptions, the Government has reflected the concerns and views to the Board of MTRCL and requested the Corporation to carefully consider the matter. The Board of MTRCL has followed up on the matter and decided to include the occurrence of serious service disruptions as a consideration in the payment of performance-based remuneration to the Corporation's senior management staff in future.
The FAM of MTRCL is subject to review every 5 years. The last review was due in 2013 and it was completed in April that year. As the new FAM has just become effective since last year, we will take into account the experience accumulated and review in a timely manner.
Note 1: Excluding the amount MTRCL has to pay the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation each year for using the latter's railway assets since the rail merger (some $2 billion was paid in 2013).
Note 2: POOA is the confederation of non-franchised public bus operators in Hong Kong. At present, around 200 non-franchised operators are members of the POOA, and together forming a fleet of about 5 000 buses which accounts for about 70% of the total non-franchised buses operating in Hong Kong.
Ends/Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Issued at HKT 12:45
NNNN
