An evaluation of public transport pricing and fare affordability in Hong Kong

Abstract

Ensuring the affordability of public transport is key to a city as it ensures the mobility of people to sustain life and facilitates trade and economic development. As it is the major mode of transport in Hong Kong, the government and the service operators strive to develop fare adjustment mechanisms to keep fares affordable and at the same time maintain its financial provision. Yet, there is general discontent among the public that fares of public transport is increasing rapidly in recent years and it imposes heavy financial burden to some people, especially the low-income families, elderly and people with disabilities. Despite the various transport subsidy schemes provided by the government, people generally find the fare levels of public transport too high. This dissertation is aimed to examine the existing fare levels and the affordability of public transport in Hong Kong and compare with the international practices. Under the constraints of limited resources and manpower, a quantitative approach is adopted to gather information and feedback from the public through a survey with sample size of 200. The data collected provide evidence on people’s expenditure on transport every month and their opinion on the public transport pricing for in-depth analysis. Through case studies on the pricing policies and fare affordability levels of public transport in Singapore and the United Kingdom, it is concluded that the fare levels of public transport in Hong Kong is considerably higher and households in Hong Kong spend more of their income on transport every month than in other countries. The affordability level of public transport is declining over the years in Hong Kong and it is obliged for the government and service operators to solve the problem. In both case studies, the governments in Singapore and the United Kingdom both provide direct subsidy to the public transport systems by funding the infrastructural development to support the sustainability of the network and ensure its fare affordability. Moreover, the Singapore government also develops its Fare Adjustment Mechanism that takes into consideration the energy index that reflects the changes in energy costs which affects the operation costs significantly. These overseas experience should be regarded as reference for Hong Kong when implementing transport pricing policies to improve the fare affordability of the public transport system in future.