Topic: History of Land Public Transport in Hong Kong and Macao
Introduction
- Introduce a little bit of the geographical situation of Macao and of Hong Kong.
- Name the difference of land public transport used in Macao and Hong Kong.
- Explain why the land public transportation system of Macao is different from Hong Kong.
Body
1. How did people in Hong Kong/ Macao get to their destinations before they have motorized transport?
- Start with introducing the first kind of land public transport used in the earliest time both in Hong Kong and Macao.
- sedan chair/palankeen (used by people who have money).
- Eg. Even today people in Sichuan use palankeen to carry people up mountains.
2. How/Why/When did rickshaw become popular in Hong Kong?
- Became a popular public transport for everybody.
3. How/Why/When did pedicab become popular in Macao?
- Became a popular public transport for everybody. Even used to transport small amount of big piece furniture.
- Almost in most tourist attraction sites could find pedicab.
- Anyone can be a pedicab driver in the beginning of the past.
- But later it required them to get license. It still remains the same today.
* Pedicab may be fading away but minimum amount of pedicab may still remain for tourism purposes in Macao.
- Small number of pedicab could still be found in the Ferry Terminal.
4. When did people come to use tram/cable car in Hong Kong?
- Tram still remains as one of the most popular kind of land public transport in Hong Kong. It is extremely cheap and quite time consuming.
5. When were cable cars used in Macao?
- Only few years ago, the Chong San began to use cable cars.
6. When was train used in Hong Kong?
7. When did buses/taxi come to Hong Kong/Macao?
- Macao's first bus company is TCM. Later Transmac also join in.
- Hong Kong has a number of bus service companies. The ones which we usually heard about are the Citybus, Kowloon Motor Bus(KMB), and KCR Bus.
- For taxi, Macao has black taxi and yellow taxi.
- Hong Kong has red urban taxis, green New Territories taxis & blue Lantau taxis.
- The appearance and size of Macao buses have been changing and improving.
8. Why did Macao not have double-deck buses like Hong Kong?
- At first, Macao did have double-deck buses. But due to signboard reasons, government abolished this kind of buses and changed to use single-deck buses.
9. Why did Macao not have underground rail like Hong Kong since long time ago?
- Macao's government prefer to build the elevated light rail than the underground rail.
10. Why did the government of Macao want to build a light rail now?
- Traffic problems and the flourish of gaming industry and tourism led government consider this.
- When will it be ready?
- The first phase will be ready by 2012.
11. What will the light rail bring to Macao people?
*The light rail that is going to be built may not be of great use.
* The traffic problems of Macao may not possibly be improved with the new light rail.
12. What places will the light rail pass?
- Big stops – Border Gate, Areia Preta, Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal, NAPE, Nam Van District, Barra, Sai Van Bridge, Macao Stadium……
13. Will the light rail replace the buses of Macao and become the major kind of public transport in Macao?
* Buses may continue to be the main public transport in Macao
14. What are the differences of the transport system between Hong Kong and Macao?
- Macao does not have some kind of transport, like tram, train and underground rail.
* The transport system of Hong Kong is more efficient. (HK is a bigger place than Macao)
- Macao is at its worst now: cannot catch a taxi; cannot get seats at buses.
Conclusion
- Macao is developing and seems to have a bright future.
- Many people from China come and immigrate in Macao. Together with a lot of tourists visit to ‘Asia Las Vegas’.
- Causing serious traffic problems. The land public transportation system needs to be improved or solved.
- However, due to geographical reasons and other reasons, Macao cannot apply the same kind of mass transportation system (using double-deck buses, tram and underground rail) like Hong Kong.
- Macao government has planned to build the light rail to solve Macao's traffic problem.
- How efficient or useful will the light rail be will need to wait for the attitude of the public.
- Macao's land public transportation system will not be as efficient as that of Hong Kong.
