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| People 60 and over can ride public transport for HK$2 |
One of the perks of being a senior in Hong Kong is that taking public transportation is much cheaper. When people 60 years old and over take the MTR, bus, and ferry, it costs HK$2 (US$0.26) per ride.
Naturally it's not surprising to see more elderly people riding 650 routes for buses and ferries, as well as the MTR railway network.
However, the authorities have found that over the past eight months, 4,260 rail passengers were fined for misusing the HK$2 fare concession scheme.
The government has also found that over the last five years, 1,419 suspected cases of abuse of the scheme were uncovered during monitoring of buses, MTR, ferries, minibuses, trams and even buses to transport residents to and from their apartment blocks.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han even mentioned one passenger who was fined HK$14,000 (US$1,800) and had to pay around HK$2,000 in unpaid fares.
He said the Transport Department had asked operators to increase ticket checks and passenger identity verification, as well as strictly enforce penalties.
This is hard for frontline workers to enforce when there are lots of people getting on a bus or ferry, and also what can they do if someone doesn't pay up?
The scheme costs the government around HK$6 billion in terms of reimbursement of costs to the transportation companies.
In order to make up for the shortfall, lawmaker Peter Koon Ho-ming suggests doubling the concession fare to HK$4 to keep the scheme sustainable.
"Transportation fares have gone up by around 30 percent since the HK$2 scheme was rolled out. Is it feasible that we keep the concessionary fare at HK$2 and don't increase it? I think we should be more realistic when looking at this," he said.
Koon is the reverend who helped Chan Tong-kai who allegedly murdered his girlfriend in Taiwan and set off the anti-extradition protests in 2019...
Another lawmaker, Chan Siu-hung, suggested placing restrictions on the scheme, such as limiting the number of trips a person could make.
"Whatever it is going to be -- be it a fare discount, a limit on the number of rides or on the fare -- I hope the original purpose of the policy can be maintained, which is to encourage the elderly to go out more," Chan said.
