Letters | Would breaking MTR’s monopoly really benefit Hong Kong?
- Readers discuss calls for competition in Hong Kong’s rail market, and official efforts to rejuvenate the city’s nightlife
The second-stage study on the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Rail Link is still under way. It is prudent at this time, therefore, for the government to canvass options for financing, construction and operation of the link.
However, while the link might be viewed as strategically necessary to facilitate the development of renminbi financial services, it is difficult to see how passenger numbers are generated thereby.
Mr Henry Cheung Nin-sang, chairman of the Association of Hong Kong Railway Transport Professionals, according to your report, estimates a construction cost of “about HK$20 billion for the Hong Kong leg as the government would prefer to adopt a light rail system”, thereby implying that a heavy rail system would be more expensive. For a 10km route length with one station (for certain), including a contribution to the purchase and stabling of rolling stock, even that sum seems expensive.
We are told that the Hong Kong government may invite bids for the opportunity to construct and/or operate the link.
How a “light rail system” sits with the Shenzhen authorities is not remarked upon. Would a light rail system be suitable for the proposed future extension from Hung Shui Kiu to Hong Kong Island via the Kau Yi Chau artificial islands? How are boundary crossing facilities to be implemented and paid for?
Must all passengers alight at Shenzhen Bay Port – a station suggested by lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun – or another location in Shenzhen to pass through border control before boarding another train? Perhaps no border control will be required by the time the link is constructed?
As to “break[ing] the MTR Corp’s monopoly” and introducing “competition in the rail market”, it is difficult to see how introducing a monopoly service on the link railway can influence the monopoly operations of the MTR network, or competition for passengers in Hong Kong. If the references to “MTR monopoly” and to MTR complacency are about benchmarking the service offered to rail passengers, then MTR has done this for many years: it is a member of the Community of Metros (COMET), which covers 45 metro systems from 41 cities around the world and benchmarks worldwide urban railway performance. MTR Corp does not disgrace itself.
If your readers wish to know how competition between different train companies operating over the same tracks works (or doesn’t), they may refer to reports on the UK’s railway network.
R. Coates, Sham Shui Po
Are officials suffering from Saturday night fever?
Are our city leaders lost and confused and suffering from Saturday night fever?
Hans Ebert, Wan Chai
