Editorial

"The increase in MTR fares has triggered robust debate in the society for several years. Recently, this topic becomes thornier due to further increase in fares in October this year. Citizens, predominantly gross roots have been suffered from the inflation seriously, the increase in fares worsens their situations.

After studied this issue thoroughly, I realized that there was some wrong decisions made years before and constitute current bad decision. Although the fare increase decision is depending on the Fare Adjustment Mechanism (FAM), the government and the MTR are also obligated to take responsibilities on publics’ discontent.

Undoubtedly, the FAM is not comprehensive to reflect the current economic situation as well as appropriate fares level. In addition, it is known that MTR was privatized in 2000, which was solely owned by the government. Privatization means the government gave up the control of the corporation. That worsens the problem. Besides, being the largest shareholder of MTR makes the public doubt the government’s standpoint, whether maximize the profits or alleviate burdens is its main objective. It is really hard to say and hard to proof.

In short, FAM is no doubt that should be modified as soon as possible. Also, the government should put its citizens’ welfare and living at the first priority. Otherwise, the government will be not convincible enough to execute other policies in the future."

 Lam Wing Yin Joe

 

"According to the mass media report, we can realize that MTR keep increase the fee in past 3-year. But the majority of the public state it is unreasonable of the increasing. Therefore, I would like to find some information why the MTR added large percentage of the fee.
　　Firstly, MTR pointed out that the railway operator needs a stable financial environment in order to provide an efficient service. Thus, they have to install automatic platform gates as well as set more public toilets. It seems that the increasing is necessary. In fact, this is a trick. Many experts to assess the facilities of the MTR, pointed out that the improvement MTR is unnecessary. For example, MTR have eighty-four stations and among the Thirty-eight stations have been equipped with toilets. So, should we still trust MTR？
　　It goes without saying that HK government is the major shareholders of MTR. But the Government does not paying attention to the needs of the traveling public. The Government only turns a blind eye of the MTR – it connived of the MTR unreasonable fare.
　　From my point of view, the fare adjustment mechanism must have the adjustment as soon as possible. But the adjustment is for the prevention of MTR sustained increases."

Hanson Choi

 

"The whole issue is actually about the problem of commercialization.
Transportation to a certain level is a daily necessity and public utility. From the point of view of citizens, it should not aim at profit maximizing. However, the problem is government is not capable to operate any kind of public utility in order to benefit the citizens to the largest extent. Therefore, the things go commercialization and market mechanism will adjust the cost, demand and supply etc. Such way of running public utility is neutral in nature and indeed countries all over the world are doing the same as it is the most practical solution so far.
But does it mean government could then leave everything to the market to decide? Of course not! The present of government is to supervise the market and intervene when things go wrong. So what’s happening in Hong Kong would be quite ironic. The HKSAR government is the largest shareholder of the MTR cooperation Ltd and it definitely creates roles contradiction when shareholders look for profit but government has to protect the interest of general public.
In my opinion, the FAM does have its problems but the roles that government is now taking matters more."

Wing Tim To (Tim)

 

"In the recent years, the inflation rate has raised rapidly in Hong Kong so people need to increase their expenditures in different places. Transportation fee is one of them. In Hong Kong, many people use MTR as their first choice of the transports. Unfortunately, MTR added large percentage of the fee in previous years after the FAM was introduced in 2006.
In this year, MTR is planning to raise the ticket price again. Many people are dissatisfied because it really increases people’s financial burdens. Moreover, it is also unreasonable because MTR has a large amount of profits every year. MTR is lack of social responsibility and use the cost of fuels has increased in recent years as an excuse to raise the ticket price in order to earn more.
Hong Kong Government is the largest shareholders of MTR. I think the government should pay more attention on MTR and improve the FAM system in order not to let MTR increase the price whenever it wants. As a shareholder, there is a role contradiction. The government must think of the way to let people know that the government is not helping the MTR to earn profits but standing on the side of people."

Ka Fai Li (Roy)

 

"As a public utility, Hong Kong people expect MTRC can deliver good rail service and maintain low fare. Comparing to the railway services in the other parts of the world, MTRC actually did a great job in providing safe and reliable railway system. However, the service level seems declining in recent years. The accident rate increased drastically in the last few years. Also, MTRC’s fare had already increased for 3 consecutive years while making huge profit. These two factors led to Hong Kong’s dissatisfaction towards MTRC.

But MTRC is not the only party to blame; Hong Kong government is also responsible as it facilitated the insufficient FAM approval in 2007, which made MTRC can raise its fare in recent years. It is necessary for the government and MTRC to review FAM such that it would no longer gives people the impression of “only-increase” fares mechanism.

After all, as a listed company, MTRC needs to maximize its profit in order to fulfill the stockholders’ expectation. Thus, MTRC needs to put more effort on searching the balance between the public expectation and shareholders’ one."

Allen Fung

 

"MTR subway is one of the most important public transports in Hong Kong. Therefore, MTR fare adjustment is related with people’s daily lives. In recent three years, MTR has adjusted its fare three times although many parties tried to stop it. MTR claimed their fare adjusted is according to FAM. However, most people think MTR should not increase its fare because their profit also increases every year. Hence, as citizens, our group tries to study this case and find out the problem in MTR fare adjustment.
The contrast between citizens’ reaction and MTR’s action is interesting. Actually, MTR is controlled by the Hong Kong government. The government has right to stop MTR increasing the fare. However, if the government stops MTR to make profit, it also affects the government’s income. It does not make sense to cut off its own profit so it created a system to balance MTR’s fare and citizens’ income. Under this system, MTR increases its fare three times without any consultations. People are angry with that.
The government tries to appease publics angry but doing not things. Our team tries to suggest some ideas and improve the FAM system. Finally, we make this project."

Allen Hui

 

"Transportation is essential to every citizen. Whenever they go to work or to schools, they need to take public transports. Hence, a certain percentage of earned money goes to transportation every month. In the past, this percentage of money did not really a big deal. However, more and more citizens feel the burden of increasing ticket fees.

MTR is one of the main public transports that citizens usually take. As the company provides service for most of the people – including a lot from the low income group, it should take care more about the citizens’ economic situation rather than maximizing its profit. Therefore, the government sets up FAM to prevent MTR from increasing ticket fares when Hong Kong’s economy is indecent. However, this mechanism does not protect Hong Kongers

. Instead, their burden increases every year because according to the formula, MTR should increase the ticket fees.

This unexpected result reveals that there is a problem in FAM. Because of this, passengers need to pay more for tickets despite the indecent economy. Their burdens are becoming heavier and heavier. In order to prevent the situation from getting worse, a comprehensive review is necessarily needed. This system needs to be fair to the citizens. While the price increases, MTR’s service should be guaranteed. Thus, the government should take initiative to review this mechanism to alleviate the burden of passengers."

Oscar Leung

 

"In a busy city like Hong Kong, public transportations provide us the citizen a great convenience. Especially thanks to the smooth cooperation between the MTR network railways, the length span between here seems to be shorten. However, after the setup of Fare Adjustment Mechanism of MTR in 2007, the fare is adjusted only by the formula. Any fare increase does not need to be approved by the Executive Council. The fare increased year by year. On the other hand, the MTR Company is making great profits. Under the spot light of mass media reporting the concerns, it comes to us that the impression of MTRC is a greedy commercial company instead of a conscience enterprise.
Under the sense of it, we try to investigate the increasing fare is reasonable or not. By comparison with Franchised bused and the Star Ferry, the fare system of MTR is not sound and balanced since it only considers the inflation related factors but not a basket of all relevant factors like services quality. The system should be reviewed and added in more factors. Ironically, government is the biggest shareholder of MTR but does not work enough to reach the expectation of the grassroots. What we hope to achieve is not giving out money compensation, but a sound and balanced fare system which really make our society better."

Gary Chan

 

"As a foreigner living in Hong Kong for just a short period of four months, I have relied heavily on MTR as a major public transport, much less for citizens of Hong Kong who use MTR in their daily living! Hong Kong people have expressed their frustration due to the MTR fare hikes through protests on the streets and even in the online community. While MTRC rationalizes that the hikes are based on the FAM, the voices of the people cannot be dismissed. For example, what do people really want to change? Are the hikes really fair for Hong Kong people, especially when they have to deal with the effects of inflation in other aspects of their lives?
This issue is not just about the fare hikes but concerns the idea of civil society. In a civilized society, the government strives to listen to the concerns of their people. At the same time, the people feel empowered to speak up and do something about issues that affect them. This way, the society in Hong Kong will truly be one which makes every effort to be democratic and fair."

Jean Yeo Yun Jing