Bus passengers seem to be getting more careless with their possessions.
Smartphones, cash - totalling HK$2 million - and more unusual things such as dentures and marriage certificates are some of the nearly 70,000 items found on KMB's fleet from July 2010 to June this year, up 8 per cent from the year before.
Francis Lam Sai-shu, principal operations officer at Kowloon Motor Bus, said people were often not bothering to reclaim ordinary mobile phones. 'Perhaps now people just [want] smartphones,' he said. Of the 5,400-odd mobile phones lost, only two-thirds were recovered by their owners, a drop of 2 per cent from the previous recovery rate. KMB has been finding more smartphones, including the iPhone 4.
That compared with the 90 per cent recovery of lost cash. The company recorded more than 6,300 incidences of cash found in purses or wallets, amounting to HK$2 million.
Octopus cards are the most commonly lost item - with more than 8,600 cards. Only 63 per cent were recovered by their owners.
Other smaller lost items included Hong Kong identity cards, jewellery, and more unusual items including wigs, Chinese opera costumes and violins. 'Some of these lost items are nicely packed and fancy,' Lam said.