Why Hong Kong's Subway is so Good

January 5, 2024 - 7 mins read

Non-technical

During my 4th year of University, I got the pleasure of going abroad to Hong Kong for one semester to study. I could talk forever about how amazing this experience was, however I want to focus on one topic for this post; the transit, and why I think it’s the best in the world.

MTR (港鐵)

MTR (Mass Transit Railway) is Hong Kong’s primarily government-owned transit company, having a monopoly over the subway, streetcars, and buses for the entire country. To a freedom-loving North-American like me, this sounds like a recipe for disaster, but as I will find the time to explain, the system works extremely well.

How good is it really?

To really get a feel for how insanely good it is, let’s take a moment to compare it to New York’s MTA, which more people reading are potentially familiar with.

	New York	Hong Kong
# of Stations	423	99
Annual Ridership	2.0B	1.6B
Length of System (KM)	399	174.7
Price (USD)	$2.90	$0.90
Punctuality*	84%	99.9%

*Punctuality is defined by a passenger arriving within 5 minutes of their planned arrival time.

This is, in a word, ridiculous. The biggest city in the most powerful country in the world can only muster up a 84% timeliness. Meanwhile, the MTR’s uptime could be compared to the uptime of a website/service, something that doesn’t have any moving parts. (Remember, this is a TRAIN NETWORK)

Along with that, the system has a more than 3.5x ridership-per-station count, meaning each station is being used 3.5x as much. Subjectively, I noticed I enjoyed the MTR much more, with it being much cleaner, and easier to navigate (near the end of my 4 months I tried navigating with my eyes closed to some locations, and I could!). I ended up visiting every station on the system at least once, and made sure to grab a picture of the iconic signage.

My home platform of Kowloon Tong, with arrival times you can actually believe

The Triple-Station-Cross-Transfer

It’s not just the easy to measure metrics that make the system great, it’s the immensely useful quality of life features of the system. One of the features that’s hard to notice at first is cross-platform transfers. This is best explained using the Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong lines.

Above shows the upper and lower floors of three stations. In the arrangement above, any transfer between the green and red lines only requires crossing the platform at the correct time. This isn’t a new idea. Lots of other transit systems around the world provide this feature as well, however it’s a feature that takes a considerable amount of planning and intention to get right.
This, along with countless other features such as platform screen doors, amazing resources for people with disabilities, and the omnipresent Octopus Cards used for payment create a system that easily becomes world-class.

What it has going for it

A truly great system, I believe, does not come from good decision making alone. Hong Kong has a lot going for it, and I’ve picked three that I think are some of the larger factors that turn this from a well-planned system, into the best system in the world.

Density

In case you don’t know anything about Hong Kong, it is DENSE. Going back to the comparison with New York, the population density is 29.3K/mi^2. Hong Kong however, has a density of 58.0K/mi^2 in the urban area*.
Comparing the densest part of both locations produces the same results. Manhattan has a population density of 72.9K/mi^2, while Kowloon’s is 111.4/mi^2.
This extreme density allows Hong Kong to get more out of their stations, which leads to less track to maintain, and more focus on less stations, and (imagine trying to implement something like disability features in 423 stations!)

*About 24.9% of Hong Kong’s land is built-up. While the rest is either farmland in the north, or mountainous terrain that’s difficult to build on

Low rates of crime

It’s hard to get exact stats on the topic, but it’s safe to say that fare evasion is not a significant issue for the MTR. During my four months there I never saw a single person skip the fare.

There is also a sence of “shared suffering” among people in Hong Kong. That is, people who witness fare skipping are much more likely to report it. People from Asia are less likely to commit misdemeanors such as fare skipping, and are also more likely to report if they see someone else doing it. This goes hand-in-hand with the government’s willingness to prosecute and Even something as trivial as entering the train while the doors are closing can result in a $250USD fine, and food or drink is a big no-no on subways.

Government Pressure

The Hong Kong Government is in a bit of a precarious position because of its status as a city-state.

This is because the GDP of the entire country comes from its ability to facilitate business, host tourists, and handle logistics. Any moment this is not able to happen is a direct cut to the GDP of the country. This is much more so the case than a country like the U.S. that has diverse industries such as agriculture and manufacturing. This in turn makes transit extremely important. The system being down for an hour means deals don’t happen, tourists don’t shop, and the country suffers.

Since the transit is paramount to Hong Kong’s survival, the government is extremely motivated to keep the system as reliable as it can.

The Carrot and the Stick

The key then, comes down to one thing: incentive. How do we make sure that whatever entity is managing the system has the right incentives to keep it running? This is where the genius of the system comes in. MTR is a publicly traded company. This means, in a very superficial way, the only concern they have is revenue.

The Stick

The first part of this equation is pretty simple. If the system is down for a reason within the MTR’s control, heavy fines apply. For every delay that lasts more than 30 mins, the MTR is fined $1M HKD. In 2022 this accumulated into a $65.5M HKD fine over 8 service disruptions that lasted more than 30 mins. This money is then directed to rebates for users of the subway system.

The Carrot

Much like the U.S. manifest destining her way across the American west, the government has given MTR the right to develop the land surrounding any stations that it builds. Rather than land grants however, MTR is given the right to lease and develop the land. And you know what they do with this land? Shopping malls, offices, and residential space. The subway system is really just an interconnected web of everything a person could need.

This means MTR has an incentive to make people want to use the system. The more people use it, the more shopping they do at the stores that are so deeply connected to their network. Remember the Octopus cards that make the system easy to use? They ‘conveniently’ work at essentially every store in every mall connected to the system, so you can use the same card to commute, buy lunch, and go shopping with some friends all without having to think! Likewise, if the system goes down it directly affects the number of people able to shop.

All of this culminates in a system where the company running the transit network has every motivation in the word to make a reliable and enjoyable experience.

The iconic colorful tiles and bold font of a station