Parent | MTR Corporation |
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Founded | 2 December 2007 |
Service area | Tuen Mun District Yuen Long District |
Service type | Non-franchised bus service |
Routes | 22 |
Fleet | 165 (December 2020) |
Daily ridership | 51 million annually (2019) |
Fuel type | Diesel |
Website | www.mtr.com.hk |
MTR Bus | |||||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 港鐵巴士 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 港铁巴士 | ||||||||||
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MTR Feeder Bus | |||||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 港鐵接駁巴士 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 港铁接驳巴士 | ||||||||||
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MTR Bus (legally Northwest Transit Service Area Bus Service) is a public non-franchised bus service in Hong Kong operated by the MTR Corporation,serving the northwestern part of the New Territories. It comprises a network of 22 feeder bus routes for the convenience of passengers using the MTR rapid transit network,providing access to and between many MTR stations on the Tuen Ma line and Light Rail. [1]
The service carried approximately 51 million passengers in 2019 [2] and is integrated with MTR's fare system to allow Tuen Ma line and Light Rail passengers who use Octopus cards to enjoy the free feeder bus services that link many housing estates along these lines. Along with the Light Rail,the MTR Bus service also plays an important role in the internal transport network of Tuen Mun,Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai.
The similarly named MTR Feeder Bus refers to feeder bus routes connecting to East Rail line. Currently only 4 MTR Feeder Bus routes serving Tai Po Market station are in operation. While also managed by MTR Corporation's Bus Operations division,the MTR Feeder Bus routes are franchised bus routes under Kowloon Motor Bus's franchise.
In the 1980s,the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) undertook the construction of operation of a Light Rail Transit (LRT) system in Northwest New Territories. To ensure the financial viability of the LRT system as much as possible,the Hong Kong government established the Northwest Transit Service Area (TSA;西北鐵路服務範圍,commonly known as 輕鐵專區) within which the KCRC would monopolise all internal public transport services. Upon the commissioning of the LRT system,the incumbent operator Kowloon Motor Bus (KMB) had to withdraw from all internal routes it was operating in the area,and external routes could not carry passengers travelling solely within the area.
As the TSA also covers housing estates and remote settlements not directly served by the LRT network,the KCRC believed that it was advantageous for the Corporation itself to have full control of the bus operations that would perform feeder functions to its railways. It was against this backdrop that the KCRC established a Bus Division in 1986,and placed an order for 31 MCW Metrobus double deckers with Metro Cammell Weymann. [3] The KCR Bus service started operation on 6 September 1987 when it took over route 59B (Siu Hong Court to Butterfly Estate) from KMB. The KCRC gradually built up its own bus fleet,and as the LRT service came into operation on 18 September 1988,more of KMB's Tuen Mun and Yuen Long routes were transferred to the KCRC. [4]
Since the commencement of LRT service,the KCR Bus service had primarily played the role of linking remote housing estates and rural settlements such as Tai Lam and Tai Tong to the LRT network. Free interchange was offered to LRT passengers transferring to feeder bus routes,and vice versa. The KCRC Bus Division also operated auxiliary routes that supplements the inadequacies of the LRT service. These A-prefixed routes did not offer interchange concession to LRT passengers. By the mid-1990s,two express bus routes (K1X,K2X) connecting Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai to the Tuen Mun Ferry Pier were established to encourage residents to make use of the hovercraft service to Central, [5] in order to alleviate the traffic conditions along the heavily overloaded Tuen Mun Road.[ citation needed ]
When the KCR West Rail (later MTR West Rail line and now part of Tuen Ma line) commenced service in 2003,the KCR Bus service took up the new role of being the feeder transport of the new rail link. The existing feeder and auxiliary bus network were reorganised.[ citation needed ]
On 2 December 2007,the transport operations of the MTR Corporation and the KCRC were merged. The MTRC took over the KCR Bus service and renamed it "MTR Bus".[ citation needed ]
The Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) is,according to the provisions of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation Ordinance (Cap. 372),authorised to operate bus services within the North-west Transit Service Area (TSA), [6] and is also allowed to charge fares from passengers of such service. [7] Under the Service Concession Agreement entered into between KCRC and the MTR Corporation (MTRC),the former's rights to operate bus services within the TSA has been granted to the MTRC,as an arrangement enshrined in the Mass Transit Railway Ordinance (Cap. 556).
As of January 2023, MTR Bus operates a total of 20 regular routes, including 9 serving Tuen Mun District and another 11 serving Yuen Long District. All existing MTR Bus routes are prefixed with K (e.g. K51, K75A) with the sole exception of route 506, which was once a Light Rail route and retained its original numbering after its conversion into a bus service. [8]
These routes all serve at least one of the following Tuen Ma line stations: Tuen Mun, Siu Hong, Tin Shui Wai, Long Ping and Yuen Long, as well as several Light Rail stops. Passengers may enjoy free travel on MTR Bus routes (except K52A [note 1] ) if they transfer to or from Tuen Ma line or Light Rail using the same Octopus card. [1]
Special routes are also operated in winter for those flocking to the sweet gum woods in Tai Tong, when the leaves there turn red.[ citation needed ]
The MTR Feeder Bus service currently comprises 4 routes. All existing routes connect to Tai Po Market Station and are confined to serving within Tai Po District.
As of December 2020, the MTR Bus fleet is composed of 165 buses. [2] The majority of the fleet are diesel-powered double deckers, consisting of the following models:
The Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is a major public transport network serving Hong Kong. Operated by the MTR Corporation (MTRCL), it consists of heavy rail, light rail, and feeder bus services, centred around a 10-line rapid transit network, serving the urbanised areas of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The system encompasses 245.3 km (152.4 mi) of railways, as of December 2022, with 179 stations—including 99 heavy rail stations, 68 light rail stops and 1 high-speed rail terminus.
The Kowloon–Canton Railway was a railway network in Hong Kong. It was owned and operated by the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) until 2007. Rapid transit services, a light rail system, feeder bus routes within Hong Kong, and intercity passenger and freight train services to China on the KCR network, have been operated by the MTR Corporation since 2007.
The Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation is a Hong Kong wholly government-owned railway and land asset manager. It was established in 1982 under the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation Ordinance for the purposes of operating the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR), and to construct and operate other new railways. On 2 December 2007, the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), another railway operator in Hong Kong, took over the operations of the KCR network under a 50-year service concession agreement, which can be extended. Under the service concession, KCRC retains ownership of the KCR network with the MTRCL making annual payments to KCRC for the right to operate the network. The KCRC's activities are governed by the KCRC Ordinance as amended in 2007 by the Rail Merger Ordinance to enable the service concession agreement to be entered into with the MTR Corporation Limited.
The Kowloon Motor Bus Company (1933) Limited (KMB) is a bus company operating franchised services in Hong Kong. It is the largest bus company in Hong Kong by fleet size and number of bus routes, with over 4,000 buses - mostly double deckers - and 420 routes. It is a subsidiary of Transport International.
The West Rail line was a rapid transit line that formed part of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong until 27 June 2021. Coloured magenta on the MTR map, the line ran from Tuen Mun to Hung Hom, with a total length of 35.7 kilometres (22.2 mi), in 37 minutes. The railway connected the urban area of Kowloon and the new towns of Yuen Long, Tin Shui Wai and Tuen Mun in the northwestern New Territories.
The Light Rail, also known as the Light Rail Transit (LRT), officially the North-West Railway, is a light rail system in Hong Kong, serving the northwestern New Territories, within Tuen Mun District and Yuen Long District. The system operates over 1,435 mmstandard gauge track, using 750 V DC overhead power supply. It was once one of four systems comprising the KCR network in Hong Kong, before the MTR–KCR merger in 2007. It has a daily ridership of about 483,000 people. The line is colour warm yellow on the map, formerly deep orange before the MTR–KCR merger.
The East Rail line is one of the ten lines that form MTR, the mass transit system in Hong Kong. The railway line starts at Lo Wu or Lok Ma Chau, both of which are boundary crossing points into Shenzhen and joins in the north at Sheung Shui and ends at Admiralty station on Hong Kong Island. At approximately 46 km (29 mi), the line is the second longest line within the network, behind the Tuen Ma line. The line's colour is light blue, formerly navy blue before the KCR/MTR merger.
The Ma On Shan line was a rapid transit line that formed part of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. Coloured brown on the MTR map, the line acted as a branch of the East Rail line that connects the new towns of Sha Tin and Ma On Shan in the northeastern New Territories.
Tai Po Market is an MTR station on the East Rail line in the New Territories, Hong Kong. Located between Flagstaff Hill and Wan Tau Tong Estate in Tai Po, and adjacent to the eponymous market town, the station has three tracks and four platforms. Platform 1 is for northbound trains to border crossing stations at Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau and platform 4 is for southbound trains to Admiralty, Kowloon while platforms 2 and 3 use the same track and is reserved for peak hour traffic.
MTR Corporation Limited is a majority government-owned public transport operator and property developer in Hong Kong which operates the Mass Transit Railway, the most popular public transport network in Hong Kong. It is listed on the Hong Kong Exchange and is a component of the Hang Seng Index. The MTR additionally invests in railways across different parts of the world, including franchised contracts to operate rapid transit systems in London, Stockholm, Beijing, Hangzhou, Taipa, Shenzhen, Sydney, and a suburban rail system in Melbourne.
The Kowloon Southern link is a section of the MTR East Rail and Tuen Ma line linking Nam Cheong station and Hung Hom station. The rail link is fully underground, lies along the south-west coastline of Kowloon Peninsula, east of rail tracks of the Tung Chung line and Airport Express. Kowloon Southern Link has one underground intermediate station called Austin station. It is located adjacent to the Canton Road Government Offices, close to Kowloon station of Tung Chung line and Airport Express. However, the structures do not provide a direct transfer between the two stations.
Tuen Mun or Castle Peak is an area near the mouth of Tuen Mun River and Castle Peak Bay in the New Territories, Hong Kong. It was one of the earliest settlements in what is now Hong Kong and can be dated to the Neolithic period. In the more recent past, it was home to many Tanka fishermen who gathered at Castle Peak Bay. Tuen Mun is now a modern, mainly residential area in the north-west New Territories. As of 2011, 487,546 live in Tuen Mun and over 95% of them are Chinese.
Tuen Mun Ferry Pier (屯門碼頭), or Tuen Mun Ferry Terminal, is a public pier located in the southern area of Tuen Mun, Hong Kong.
The SP1900 EMU / SP1950 EMU or IKK Train is a model of train that runs on Hong Kong's Tuen Ma line. It was the second model of electric multiple unit rolling stock of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC), though they have been operated by MTR Corporation (MTRC) after it merged with KCRC in 2007.
Two Hong Kong railway companies merged operations in 2007: the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC), which operated the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR), and the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), which operated the Mass Transit Railway (MTR).
The Tuen Ma line is a rapid transit line that forms part of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. Coloured brown on the map, the Tuen Ma line is 56.2 kilometres (34.9 mi) in length, making it the longest line of the MTR network. It has a total of 27 stations, more than any other in the MTR system.
Tin Wing is an MTR Light Rail stop. It is located at ground level beside Tin Shing Road in Tin Shui Wai Town Centre, Yuen Long District. It began service on 26 March 1995 and belongs to Zone 4.
Rapid transit in Hong Kong began in 1979 with part of the Modified Initial System of the MTR entered service. The section, then ran only between Shek Kip Mei and Kwun Tong stations, was subsequently extended and new lines were added by the operator, the Mass Transit Railway Corporation.
Hong Kong's rail network mainly comprises public transport trains operated by the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRC). The MTRC operates the metro network of the territory, the commuter rail network connecting the northeastern, northwestern and southwestern New Territories to the urban areas, and a light rail network in northwestern New Territories. The operations of the territory's two leading railway companies, MTRC and the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC), were merged in 2007 on grounds of economies of scale and cost effectiveness. The Hong Kong Government has an explicit stated transport policy of using railways as its transport backbone.