We refer to the comments made by Ricky Ho ('Buses on route dirty and late', South China Morning Post, May 15), regarding the No 83S bus route, which runs between Sha Tin Central and Wong Nai Tau. The passenger concerned said he needed to wait for about 30 minutes for a No 83S bus during rush hours travelling to and from school on weekdays.
Upon receiving his comments, we immediately conducted a series of investigations into the travel records of the past few weeks.
Records reveal that under normal conditions, departures of all No 83S buses adhered to the scheduled frequencies of every 12 to 15 minutes. On only a few occasions when road conditions were busier and a longer time was taken by passengers boarding and alighting did our regulators at both terminals need to adjust departure time to cope with overruns. On such occasions, this resulted in a service gap of 20 to 22 minutes.
As for the cleanliness and appearance of our buses, we wish to point out that our company carries out a regular servicing and maintenance programme for all buses. This includes checks every night after return to the depot, monthly and six-monthly inspections, and a yearly inspection by the Government to obtain a Certificate of Road-worthiness before the buses can be put in service again. Each bus is swept three times a day and is washed every night. In addition, since May 1997 all our bus maintenance depots have had ISO 9002 certification.
Nevertheless, we will keep a close eye on the service of all route No 83S buses and pay special attention to the cleanliness of the bus seats.
We are doing all we can to keep improving our service and would like to thank the passenger for his opinion.
