Machines on MTR 'a problem'

The trend towards touch-screen ticket machines is causing problems for the blind.

The Hong Kong Blind Union said that because the MTR's new single-journey machines used touch-screen technology the blind would be left with no choice but to use the Octopus card.

'The single-journey machines are all of touch-screen mode and the customer service counter is often too difficult to locate,' the union's transport spokesman, Damon Leung Kau, said. 'The service is unfair to the visually impaired who are not frequent travellers on the MTR and cannot choose to buy single-journey tickets like other passengers.

'We pay the same amount but cannot get the same treatment,' he added.

An MTR spokesman said the company was unable to say if it might buy new machines to rectify the problem, adding it would not 'for the time being' as most machines were new and providing sufficient service.

There are about 40,000 visually impaired people in Hong Kong and Mr Leung said the trend towards touch-screen technology was worrying.

'This is a growing worry for us that more machines are operating in the touching mode,' he said.

The KCRC has installed the first of its braille station maps at Fo Tan.