Quality of service of tram services in Hong Kong

Abstract

In 2010, HKT applied for the increase in tram fare which is the first time of

application in the last 13 years. The main supporting for their application is the

urgent need to improve the efficiency, safety and quality of services in order to

provide the sustainable tram operations and ensure there is sufficient capital

support for the over $200 million improvement projects while the foreseeable

business deficits in 2011

In view of the reason for applying the increase in fare, the tram service quality

will be measured according to the fixed route transit service measures from the

Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual. Both of the availability and

quality factors will be measured by the observation and passengers’ survey

respectively. Furthermore, the 2009 survey result will also be used under the

comparative approach to find out the changes in passengers’ perception and

expectation to the tram service and their response to the increase in tram fare.

By figuring out the actual quality of tram service, the necessity and the

effectiveness of the tram service improvement programmes would be identified.

Moreover, in order to access and monitor the tram service quality, it is used to

analyze the applicability of the QoS measurement in Hong Kong tram service

and important to develop the new quality of service measure for the Hong Kong

tram according to the specialized factors for tram service that is important for the

government, HKT and the tram passengers in order to access and monitoring the

quality of tram service provided.