Franchised Bus Route Rationalization in Hk

TD propose to study franchised bus route rationalization in order to reduce 100 buses per day on the road in busy zone such as Nathan Road, Central & Wan Chai. TD said it would reduce both the congestion and air pollution.

Because transport is a derived demand, the affected passenger will shift to use other modes of transport to get to the same destination.

The numbers of affected passenger can be calculated as follows: (All the data base on my assumption)

Number of Buses affected: 100
Capacity of a Double Deck Bus : 120
Average Utilization rate : Peak 90%, Off-Peak 30%
Operating hours : 0600-2400 hours (Peak: 0700-0900hrs and 1600-1800hrs)
Average number of Trips can be operated by a Bus per Day : 18

No. of bus Capacity Utilization Rate (%) Passenger affected per hour
Peak 100 120 90 10800
Off-Peak 100 120 30 3600

It is easy to predict that the majority (95%) shift to use railway plus feeder bus/mini bus services. The minority (5%) will shift to use taxi, in some case will even shift to driving by their own.

The impact to other public transport modes may include the followings.

In peak hours
The additional passengers is may cause extra pressure to the railway line which had already approached its maximum loading such as ER, LRT and MTR Urban Line. However,It is a good news to the railway line which had not reached the maximum loading, just like Tung Chung Line, MOSR, especially WR.
Due to the large capacity of the train, there is no problem to absorb the passenger shifted from bus.

Train service cannot provide point-to-point service, the passenger need to use feeder service to get into railway systems. It is a challenge to feeder service provider (FSP) especially small capacity vehicles (e.g. PLB). No matter feed-in or feed-out, the FSP may face the overflow effect, the frequently of the service may need to be increase by all means to cope with the increase passage.

Public Light Bus will face not only the overflow caused by feeder service, but also the overflow for direct point-to-point service.

To Bus companies, due to the less of bus being operated in high utilization rate period, the profit of the peak hours may be decreased. However, the resource can be used in feeder service.

To taxi operator, the ridership and profit may slightly increase due to providing direct and feeder service.

It may have no impact to Ferry companies since the travel habit will not easily changed to ferry rider.

In off-peak hours
It is Win-Win situation to all public transport modes.

To Bus companies, the deletion of low utilization routes may save operation cost, which may not be covered by the fare income during off-peak hours.

The additional passenger may increase revenue to all the others modes since they need to do nothing absorb all the passage. No extra cost.

Due to the lesser choices and more modes will be travelled for a trip, the passenger may suffer for:
Increase of fare caused,
Increase the journey time,
Less comfort,
Become inconvenience.

Conclusion
There is only small impact to all the public transport modes, bus routes rationalization is a continuous programme of TD and Bus companies it selves to regulate and reduce the cost. TKO Bus routes rationalization is a good programme to reduce the no. of buses in that area, most of the passage shifted to MTR. However, it sacrifices the passenger’s convenience and even increases the total fare paid by them.

I also criticize the outcomes. If 0.5% of the passengers change to drive by their own, the total vehicle on street may increase instead of decrease. More feeder service may cause the same effect also.

I think it is just a good reason/chance for those franchised bus companies to reduce operating cost only.