Passenger totals for high-speed rail at 63 per cent of target in first month, Hong Kong MTR says
- City’s railway operator says progress being made as average figures are between about 30,000 and 40,000 people daily
- No word on whether it would be difficult to reach the government’s projected total profit of HK$671 million this year
The cross-border high-speed rail link carried about 63 per cent of its targeted number of passengers in its first month of operation, but more people are now trying the new services, Hong Kong’s railway operator said on Thursday.
Patronage stood at 1.5 million between September 23 and October 22 compared with the 2.4 million the government estimated would use the line, according to the MTR Corporation.
MTR Corp chief of operations Francis Li Shing-kee said on Thursday progress was being made towards boosting passenger numbers.
“It is still new and takes time to build traffic,” Li explained. “On average, there are about 30,000 to 40,000 people taking the high-speed trains on a weekday, which is not too bad in the initial stage of operations.”
The government came up with what it called a “conservative” goal a month before the link was launched by cutting the original estimated passenger figure by 28.64 per cent to 80,100 per day. Based on the first month, the average patronage daily was 50,000.