Another bus company wants to increase fares
City Bus and New World First Bus plan to raise fares because of surging fuel prices and higher operating costs.
The company's managing director, Samuel Cheng Wai-po, said the size of the increase was being worked out.
A spokeswoman added there was no timetable to apply to the Transport and Housing Bureau for the rise.
Kowloon Motor Bus was criticised in September when it announced it was applying for a 9 per cent fare increase.
A spokesman for the Coalition to Monitor Public Transport and Utilities, Tsoi Yiu-cheong, said rising oil prices were not an excuse for bus companies to raise fares.
'The fuel charges are only a small part of the bus companies' operating costs. It is not an excuse for them to increase fares,' he said.
Mr Tsoi said the bus companies did not drop their fares in recent years while there was deflation and now 'it is time for them to pay back the public'.
Meanwhile, City Bus and New World First Bus has spent HK$100 million on 28 environmentally friendly buses that are locally assembled and equipped with the cleaner Euro Four engines. Ten of them hit the road next week.
