We refer to the letter from Michelle Yu (South China Morning Post, January 10), regarding the shortage of coins for the payment of bus fares.
KMB is very concerned about the coin shortage problem in Hong Kong as it relies, to a very large extent, on a sufficient supply of coins in the market for passengers to tender bus fare payments.
As such, it is the aim of the company to speed up the procedure of handling those coins collected from passengers and to bank them every day so as to ensure that coins are circulated back to the market within the shortest period.
Also, we understand that the Government has decided to issue more coins and we believe that this will help solve the problem and ensure that there will be a sufficient supply of coins for circulation in the market.
Concerning the reader's suggestion that because of this coin shortage problem, bus fares should be rounded off to the nearest full dollar, at present, KMB operates over 380 bus routes. The fares of individual routes are determined in accordance with the nature and journey distance of each route. With effect from December 1 of last year, an average seven per cent fare increase was approved by the Government for all KMB bus routes. Accordingly, the fare of route No 74X was increased from $7.80 to $8.40.
If we had rounded off this fare either to $8 or $8.50 instead of $8.40, the fare increase percentage would have been 2.56 per cent and 8.97 per cent respectively. Such fares would have either been much lower or higher than the average seven per cent increase.
