Managing the Accessibility on Mass Public Transit: the Case of Hong Kong

Hong K Lo (), Siman Tang and David Z.W. Wang
Additional contact information
Hong K Lo: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Hong Kong
Siman Tang: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Hong Kong
David Z.W. Wang: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Hong Kong

The Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2008, vol. 1, issue 2, 23-49

Abstract: Public transit services (PTS) improve mobility and accessibility, and reduce car dependence. It is ideal if PTS are financially sustainable, with affordable fares and expedient quality. The success of PTS on accessibility improvement can be reflected by their level of patronage: do travelers choose to use them in lieu of their private cars? PTS in Hong Kong are renowned for their quality and profitability, superbly addressing the accessibility need for the city; they carry over 90% of the 11 million daily trips. A comparison of the per capita train-car and bus-vehicle kilometer run of PTS in Hong Kong with those in London and Singapore, however, suggests that it is not purely the supply that affects the use or accessibility of PTS in Hong Kong. By tracing and analyzing the development of PTS in Hong Kong over the past two decades, we found evidence that the high level of accessibility on mass public transit in the territory can be attributed to the land use policy of developing compact, high-density township, accompanying transport policies of granting high priority to the development of mass transit facilities and providing ways to ensure the financial viability of privately operated PTS, especially the innovative approach of integrating the development of public transport facility and property so as to exploit their synergy. In this paper, we study and highlight elements that contribute to the development of high accessibility on mass public transit in Hong Kong.

JEL-codes: R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/85/35 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:jtralu:0009

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Transport and Land Use is currently edited by David M. Levinson

More articles in The Journal of Transport and Land Use from Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Arlene Mathison ().