It also runs the high-speed rail service which opened in September 2018, linking Hong Kong with Shenzhen and Guangzhou, reducing travel times and connecting the city to mainland China’s extensive rail network.

With Beijing’s ambitious Greater Bay Area development plan connecting Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong province to create an economic powerhouse, new railway links will play a key role in developing the northern part of the city and deepening integration with neighbouring Shenzhen.

Eager Hong Kong rail fans get first look at new Exhibition Centre station

However, critics called for competition to improve Hong Kong’s rail service, pointing to the MTR Corp’s record of project delays, cost overruns, service disruptions and glitches which they blamed on complacency arising from its monopoly status.

MTR Corp chairman Rex Auyeung Pak-kuen shrugged off the concerns, saying the company, with more than 30,000 employees and an annual revenue of HK$47.2 billion (US$6.01 billion) and profit of HK$9.55 billion last year, would continue to “keep Hong Kong moving”.

“MTR has made great strides in the past 25 years and I have every confidence that it will continue to do the same in the next 25 years,” he told the Post in an interview.

‘Every minute matters to businessmen’

Since its first rail line opened in 1979, with nine stations between Shek Kip Mei and Kwun Tong, the MTR has become Hong Kong commuters’ main transport mode.

The network now has 166 stations – 98 heavy rail and 68 light rail stations – and before the Covid-19 pandemic, served 5 million passengers a day.

The Tung Chung line marked a milestone in rail development when it opened in 1998. The Airport Express line which also opened that year made commuting convenient for users of the new Chek Lap Kok international airport on Lantau Island.

Over the past eight years, the rail firm has delivered five new projects including the Kwun Tong line extension to Whampoa, the South Island line and the recently opened cross-harbour extension of the East Rail line, part of the HK$90.7-billion Sha Tin to Central link, the city’s most expensive rail project.

The MTR’s intercity through-train railway services and high-speed rail link allows passengers to travel with ease from Hong Kong to Guangdong province, Beijing and Shanghai.

Commuter Raymond Chan Yui-man ditched the century-old train East Rail services as soon as the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link began operating in September 2018.

The 48-year-old leader of innovation and digital transformation with Japanese restaurant group Watami (China), who lives in Hung Hom, found the new service more convenient and efficient for his business trips to Shenzhen and Wuhan.

He used to take the East Rail line from Hung Hom to Lok Ma Chau, before crossing the border, paying HK$39.70.

Although the high-speed rail cost twice as much, at HK$79 from the West Kowloon terminus to Futian, in Shenzhen, he was prepared to pay because it saved him at least 30 minutes of travelling time.

“Every minute matters to businessmen,” he said. “The magic about the high-speed rail station at Futian is its location, beneath the heart of Shenzhen’s central business district.”

High-speed rail services were suspended during the pandemic, but Chan expected it to remain a top choice for the swelling group of cross-border travellers, especially between Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area.

He recalled how, before the pandemic, he left Hong Kong at 9am by high-speed rail, arrived at Wuhan about four hours later for business meetings and lunch, then hopped on a 6pm train and was back in West Kowloon at 10pm.

“The trains were punctual and seats were comfortable, compared with frequent delays in flights,” he said.

MTR Corp beset by complacency?

Former city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor outlined in her final policy address last year five railway projects to complement the development of a proposed Northern Metropolis – an economic, infrastructure and IT hub that will create thousands of new jobs and homes.

They include a rail link connecting Hung Shui Kiu in Yuen Long to Qianhai in Shenzhen to cater for the expansion of Qianhai, and extending the MTR’s HK$62 billion Northern Link in the western and northern New Territories to cover the Lok Ma Chau Loop IT hub and the new Huanggang checkpoint.

The Northern Link will also be extended eastward from Kwu Tung to connect with Lo Wu, Man Kam To and Heung Yuen Wai. The government will also explore extending the East Rail line to Luohu, in Shenzhen, with a joint checkpoint there.

Despite the MTR Corp’s achievements and the plans that have been announced, there are those who believe Hong Kong’s rail development would proceed more efficiently and speedily if the city’s rail operator faced competition.

Listed on the stock exchange in 2000, the rail operator is about 75 per cent owned by the Hong Kong government, having merged with the wholly government-owned Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation in 2007.

In making the case to break the MTR Corp’s monopoly, Henry Cheung Nin-sang, chairman of the Association of Hong Kong Railway Transport Professionals, pointed to delays in implementing the government’s 2014 blueprint for railway plans up to 2031.

The Railway Development Strategy identified seven projects to meet the needs of new developments – the Northern Link, Tuen Mun South extension, East Kowloon line, Tung Chung line extension, Hung Shui Kiu station, South Island line (West), and North Island line.

So far, there has been news of work beginning on only four projects, the Tung Chung line extension, Tuen Mun South extension, Northern Link and Hung Shui Kiu station.

“I am very unhappy about the pace of railway development in Hong Kong. It has been too slow and has failed to cater to the city’s development,” said Cheung, laying the blame squarely on the MTR Corp’s complacency.

“The government should introduce competition and put railway projects up for tender to speed up the completion of rail projects. The city’s bus and tram operators are capable of taking on rail projects.”

New cross-harbour rail link a boon for Hong Kong commuters, not bus operators

Economist Simon Lee Siu-po, an honorary fellow at Chinese University’s Asia-Pacific Institute of Business, said new rail projects would undoubtedly boost Hong Kong’s economic development by activating mobility in underdeveloped districts.

“With greater rail connectivity with the mainland, it will be more convenient for Hongkongers to go to work or invest in the bay area. They can move there to avoid expensive rents in Hong Kong and enjoy greater opportunities,” he said.

Lee said he lived in Tai Po and before the pandemic, travelled to Shenzhen three times a week to teach at the university’s mainland campus. It meant taking the East Rail line to Lo Wu before travelling by taxi to the campus at Longgang, a journey of about one and a half hours.

“I really look forward to the planned extension of the East Rail line to Luohu, in Shenzhen with a joint checkpoint there, as this will reduce my travelling time,” he said.

Like Cheung, Lee said the government needed to inject competition to raise the quality of rail services and encourage improvement.

“The government needs to speed up the delivery of projects. The pace has been too slow. The problem is that it relies solely on MTR Corp for the provision of rail services, but the rail operator has run into too many incidents in recent years,” he said.

‘City’s rail-led strategy has worked’

Former MTR Corp chairman Frederick Ma Si-hang conceded that the shoddy work scandal in the Sha Tin to Central link project should serve as a lesson in planning rail services for the Northern Metropolis.

“The project team was expanded from 300 to 3,000 people within a short time, and these people came from different backgrounds and had different levels of integrity,” he said. “It is a lesson that the government should take into consideration when it plans the rail development of the North Metropolis.”

Overall, however, he believed the company’s strategy had worked despite some hiccups.

“The rail-led transport strategy in Hong Kong has proven viable and successful,” he said.

Lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun, former chairman of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, said the government had been too conservative in its approach to rail development.

“The government refrained from taking an infrastructure-led approach fearing that rail projects would become white elephants. It preferred to wait for the development of land in a district before pushing for rail projects,” he said.

“But this approach is wrong as it causes the city’s rail development to seriously lag behind development. When people move into a new town, they have to wait for about 10 years before they get rail services.”

He said the government should discard its conservative mindset and push for rail projects to be carried out in tandem with property development projects.

“The recent planning of the New Territories North in Fanling will be a challenge. If the government wants to develop this area, it needs to resolve the provision of rail services in the district by linking Tai Wai to Tsuen Wan,” Tien said.

Quentin Cheng Hin-kei, spokesman for the commuter concern group Public Transport Research Team, said expanding the cross-border rail network should not be a priority and questioned if there was demand for more such services.

“The government should place more emphasis on improving local rail networks to resolve congestion. We already have too many cross-border transport options,” he said.

Undeterred by critics, MTR Corp chairman Rex Auyeung pledged that the rail giant would press ahead to deliver more world-class projects under its “railway plus property” model which allows it to plan and develop property around the stations it builds.

“The model provides Hong Kong with a sustainable funding framework for railway construction, operation and upkeep,” he said. “With that, the corporation continues to deliver world-class railway services while at the same time create communities around the railway infrastructures in what is known as ‘transport-oriented development’.”

Auyeung was optimistic about the MTR Corp’s future, as it was closely connected with that of mainland China, adding that the Northern Metropolis plan offered “a golden opportunity” for Hong Kong to tap into the Greater Bay Area.

“With our railway projects in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou since the early years of this century, we have been keeping abreast of the fast-paced development on the mainland,” he said. “It makes us understand that the future of the MTR and our home city is intertwined with that of the mainland,” he said.

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The extended East Rail line, launched in May this year, would help achieve the “one-hour living circle” target of shrinking the distance between Hong Kong and bay area cities across the border.

“The extended East Rail line has opened a new chapter to generate new impetus for cooperation between Hong Kong and the mainland as mainland travellers can reach the heart of Hong Kong in less than an hour by riding on our trains at Lo Wu or Lok Ma Chau,” he said.

“We are ready to make use of the knowledge and experience we have accumulated locally and in the mainland over the years to help the governments and other cities in the bay area to make the vision of a ‘one-hour living circle’ in the area a reality.”