MTR's select few no proof of efficiency
Let's set it straight. Yes, the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is clean, fast and a mighty convenient way of commuting. Your correspondent uses it frequently.
This is in the nature of urban underground railways. They are all like that compared to alternative modes of transport. That's why so many are now being built.
It is also why you cannot compare the MTR to other modes of transport when you talk of its efficiency. You have to compare like with like to assess whether we are getting enough bang for the buck we sink into it.
It is an important question because the Government is resisting any restructuring of MTR operations in line with more modern practices abroad on the grounds that it is already a very efficient system so why tinker with it? This may indeed be true but while we have had many claims of efficiency we have been given precious little to support these claims and sometimes, as in the assertion that MTR fares have been kept below inflation, these claims are dubious.
Take another example. In its 1998 accounts the MTR compares itself with eight other metro systems around the world and gives itself high scores on eight measures of efficiency.
It does not name these metros, however, which makes the question of how they were picked only that more pressing. Here is a short list of cities with metros. Under the 'A' we have Alma Ata, Adana, Amsterdam, Ankara, Antwerp, Athens, Atlanta. Want the listings under 'B'? That's 17 more.
A little hunting and pecking through the Internet suggests that the MTR's shortlist includes London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Mexico city. All these are older systems, some very old, all are in widely spread out cities and their efficiency naturally suffers from these attributes.
The shortlist, however, does not seem to include Singapore, Seoul, Shanghai and Osaka, all of them newer systems, all in Asia and all much more comparable to the MTR, particularly Singapore.
Your correspondent won't grovel if the MTR claims that some of these were actually on the list. Why did it not name them in the first place? But notice from the first table how substantially different the MTR is from the others in terms of passenger journeys per car kilometre, length of track or number of stations.
So why does it bother to give itself a top score in Density (number of passengers per track kilometre)? Of course it is tops given the selection it has presented us. Didn't we already know we live in a crowded city? And why tops in service reliability and punctuality? Did anyone ever seriously suggest that our comparatively new system would not be better on these criteria than some of those mouldering New York and London lines? This sort of anonymous selectivity is not how you support a claim for efficiency.
An aside - the author of what your correspondent yesterday termed a recent piece of MTR 'puffery' points out that he did in fact disclose his previous employment by the MTR in his original draft. It wasn't in the published version however.
