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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-05-17 18:05
Last update date: 2021-05-17 18:06
Recently, Citybus and NWFB have repeatedly complained about a monthly loss of 10 million yuan. This year's fare increase has limited effect. It has studied various ways to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, including exploring the merger of the two buses. It also requested the government to reform the fare adjustment mechanism to achieve annual fare review and transparency. Standardization of adjustment criteria.
From the government's point of view, due to the lessons learned by the MTR, the addition and subtraction mechanism is expected to weaken the government's control over fares.
Furthermore, in addition to fares, there have been problems of bus outages and reductions in recent years, and the services have not necessarily met the franchise licensing requirements. The government should review bus services in a more comprehensive manner.
Zhong Zewen, vice chairman of Huida Group, the parent company of Citybus and NWFB, mentioned that there are many problems with the fare adjustment system. For example, the time when the executive council approves the fare increase is too far away from the application time, and it is difficult to recover the loss due to the lag time, and I don’t know how the government judges In the final adjustment range, it is therefore recommended to refer to the MTR’s practice and conduct annual inspections to make adjustments transparent, and each fare increase is milder and easier for passengers to accept.
The fare mechanism should not be "MTR-based"
However, the two bus companies' proposal that part of their profits can be allocated to the Stability Fund to relieve the pressure of future price increases seems to be a castle in the air.
Because the situation has not retreated, the profitable Citybus Airport Line has failed to regain the passenger volume. As the MTR lines continue to expand, the local population and offices continue to move to the Kowloon New Territories where the two bus companies operate less frequently. The two bus companies may also find it difficult to return to the past. Scenery moment.
In this general environment, the automatic fare adjustment mechanism will degenerate into an automatic fare increase mechanism at any time, which means that citizens are bound to pay expensive fares.
Under the franchise system, the bus company also enjoys the benefits of exclusive operation of most routes. The fare income can go to the company. Fuel, first registration tax, tunnel tolls, and fares are also subsidized and exempted by the government.
But on the other hand, the bus companies are almost asking for their fares, and the service has not been improved as a result, which is against the original intent of the policy.
Zhong Zewen pointed out that the two buses are currently facing a loss of tens of millions of yuan every month, unless the passenger volume rebounds rapidly, it is not ruled out to apply for an annual fare increase, urging the authorities to consider reforming the existing bus fare adjustment mechanism.
(Photo by Zheng Qiyuan)
Stop dropping classes, reorganize routes, and unify charges
In fact, passengers continue to complain about the two buses being out of class, and it is especially serious during the epidemic.
Although the Transport Department replied that the number of passengers at the beginning of the epidemic last year was shrinking, and the bus companies cancelled some services and even the high dropout rate, the rate has since dropped.
However, complaints about class reductions continue to this day, and the Southern and Eastern Districts are obvious examples.
The union pointed out that the company used the captain’s unpaid leave to reduce daily working hours, but the company’s move would only bring about a vicious circle, that is, the reduction of manpower leads to loss of work, the citizens abandon the bus and transfer to other modes of transportation, pushing up the company’s losses, and the company’s losses. Reduce manpower and reduce expenditure.
There are many ways to improve services. For example, the frequency of services is regulated by the government, and the Transport Department must punish bus companies for breaching their performance pledges.
On the other hand, Citybus and NWFB should not be afraid of difficulties and actively start from reorganizing routes and unifying fares to enhance operational efficiency.
In fact, even after the merger of the two buses has turned from competition to coordination, the fare system of the two buses is still calculated separately. The fare per kilometer of the new bus is usually more expensive than that of the city bus. The fare of the two buses can differ by as much as 30% on similar routes. It's not fair for your car.
The bus companies do not hope that the result of the merger will be that the NWFB fares will follow the Citybus, and further loss of fares, but the maintenance of the old fares has also been severely approved by the District Council and residents.
In the long run, there are many benefits to combining charges and integrating routes.
When passengers no longer only choose cheap routes, the capacity of similar routes can be evened out to avoid wasting cars, and it can further cooperate with the regional transfers proposed by the two bus companies earlier, and reduce the number of repeated routes through transfer concessions.
In this regard, the Transport Department should contact multiple district councils to cooperate and order the reorganization as soon as possible.
It is not the best policy for the two bus companies to reduce expenditure and increase fares to deal with the deficit. Now that the two bus companies are asking the government to improve the fare adjustment mechanism, the government should take the opportunity to request the two bus companies to improve their service quality in addition to the fare increase. The adjustments are constant and transparent, and objective adjustment factors are added. Even if the two bus companies propose to increase fares in the future, it will be more convincing.
Of course, the government must have two-handed preparations. If exhaustive measures fail to save the two bus companies, the government should consider other modes of operation, whether it is to change the operator or acquire the assets of the two bus companies, and then find an operator to provide services specifically to improve the public. The transportation service plan should not be denied lightly.
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