MTR invests to maintain world-class service quality
Letter to China Daily
MTR Corporation carried a record number of more than 2 billion passenger journeys in Hong Kong last year. Even as we operate more train services and carry more passengers than ever before, on-time performance was maintained at a world-class level of 99.9 percent. That achievement is testimony to the hard work of our staff and their determination to provide high-quality service to our customers. It also reflects the continuous investment the corporation makes to maintain and upgrade railway assets.
The investment in maintenance, upgrades and asset-replacement last year amounted to more than HK$8 billion. Major projects underway to further enhance customer service include the replacement of 93 urban-line trains with more advanced trains, new signaling systems for seven railway lines and the installation of more environmentally friendly chiller plants at stations. These investments are on top of our continuous enhancements of station facilities such as adding new passenger lifts, public toilets, breastfeeding facilities and wide gates to MTR stations, all with the objective of making passenger journeys all the more convenient and comfortable. If MTR was not profitable, these continuous enhancements would not be possible. In fact, our fares remained affordable over the years. Since the rail merger, from 2008 to last year, the average year-on-year inflation in Hong Kong has been 3.2 percent and the average annual increase in the Hong Kong Payroll Index has been 4.4 percent. Both of them are well above the average annual increase of 2.5 percent in MTR fares over the same period.
The corporation always listens to the views of our customers to see how we can further improve our services. But we cannot agree with accusations that are not fact-based, such as those made by Mr Lau Nai-keung in his article “Time to end mishaps on a profit-focused MTR” published in the China Daily on April 18 this year which accused the corporation of having a worsening standard of train service quality and poor management.
We do understand that our customers have high expectations of our services and we accept that some people may feel dissatisfied when there are occasional service disruptions. We sincerely apologize to those customers, including Mr Lau, who have encountered train service delays. We hope they can understand that railways are highly complex systems and occasional incidents are unavoidable. For our part, we take each and every incident very seriously. We deploy additional staff to affected stations to assist customers while maintenance teams carry out repairs in order to resume train service as soon as possible. We also investigate each delay and strive to implement effective enhancement measures to avoid recurrence.
Regarding passenger communications as mentioned by Mr Lau, we encourage passengers to download the MTR Mobile app which provides a wide range of useful functions and up-to-date service information. In particular, the enhanced traffic news function provides the latest updates on train service and alternative transportation information in the event of extended train service delays. In addition to MTR Mobile, the latest train service information is also provided to passengers through public announcements and the passenger information display system at relevant stations and on trains during incidents.
We appreciate feedback and comments from our customers so that we can make continuous enhancements. We will continue to listen closely to the community’s views and work diligently to reduce both the number of delays and their impact on our customers.
OSBERT KWAN