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Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, on the progress of the Public Transport Fare Concession Scheme for the Elderly and Eligible Persons with Disabilities at a media session today (May 4):
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: I would like to provide a brief update on the progress of preparation for the Public Transport Fare Concession Scheme for the Elderly and Eligible Persons with Disabilities. The Scheme aims at enabling elderly people aged 65 or above and eligible persons with disabilities to travel on the general Mass Transit Railway (MTR) lines, franchised buses and ferries at any time at a concessionary fare of $2 per trip. It aims to help build a caring and inclusive society by encouraging the elderly and eligible persons with disabilities to participate more in community activities.
As I have explained before, implementation of the Scheme is not as simple as most people would have thought. For the sake of convenience, we have decided to make use of the Octopus card for our target beneficiaries to enjoy the concessionary fare. However, even so, it requires a lot of complex software and hardware system upgrading work on the part of the transport operators concerned.
Given the technical complexity and the different timelines for the respective operators to complete their upgrading work, we are now adopting a pragmatic and flexible approach by rolling out the Scheme in a phased approach according to the respective operators' technical readiness so that the target beneficiaries can benefit from the Scheme as soon as practicable.
Subject to securing funding approval from the Legislative Council's Finance Committee at its meeting scheduled for June 8, we expect that the Scheme can be rolled out at the general Mass Transit Railway lines first at around the end of next month (June) or July this year.
This will be followed by the four bus companies (Kowloon Motor Bus Company (1933) Limited, Long Win Bus Company Limited, Citybus Limited and New World First Bus Services Limited) at around mid-September. As for the New Lantao Bus Company Limited and the ferry operators, since their systems are technically less advanced and a new centralised settlement platform has to be tailor-made by Octopus Cards Limited (OCL), the roll-out timing will be around the first quarter next year.
I would like to thank all the transport operators concerned and OCL for their support of the Scheme and full co-operation over the last few months.
We expect that around 1.1 million people, including about 980 000 elderly people and 130 000 eligible persons with disabilities, will benefit from the Scheme.
Reporter: How much is the Scheme going to cost? How can the elderly people enjoy the Scheme? And have you spoken to the Chief Executive-elect about the Scheme?
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: First of all, the Scheme is very user-friendly. For the senior citizens, all they need is an Octopus card for the elderly, either a personalised card or one without the name, and then they are eligible to travel on the MTR, buses and so on (with concessionary fare) in future. So it is accessible and user-friendly in the first place. As regards the financial implications, for the first year of operation, if the Scheme is up and running by the end of June this year, assuming approval by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council would be secured on June 8, then the whole Scheme will kick-start with the MTR first, and then the buses will come in in mid-September, followed by ferries and New Lantao Bus Company in the first quarter of next year. For the first year of its operation, not a full year but from end-June onwards, we are talking about around $230 million. But for a full year, we reckon it is about $400 million. Let me stress that the Chief Executive-elect has been kept fully in the picture on the Scheme.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, May 4, 2012
Issued at HKT 19:15
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