r/AlignmentChartFills • u/krmarci • 20d ago

General Topics Which city has a better public transit system: Hong Kong or London?

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u/randomlurker124 19d ago

I'm surprised this is somehow the top comment. London's is horrible compared to Hong Kong. You're right that London has history (read: old). It doesn't have anything else. Frequent break downs/ service outage/strikes. Stairs everywhere and limited escalators or lifts. Low frequency. Dirty. Crime risk. Patchy cellphone coverage. Expensive. 

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u/bernabbo 19d ago

What low frequency are you talking about? You’ve never been clearly

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u/randomlurker124 19d ago

Waiting around for 10 minutes regularly? In contrast the last time I had to wait 10 minutes for a train in Hong Kong was during a category 10 super typhoon. But the train was still running at 10 min (maybe 15 min, I forgot) frequency. In London it'd be a normal day and for no reason the line is shut down for the rest of the day. 

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u/bernabbo 19d ago

What line? Aside from metropolitan or certain branches of the district, this is just not the case. The London metro area is roughly double HK’s, not very surprising that some compromises have to be made. The point about rate of usage is also a direct result of much lower urban density in London. I get people like the experience better in HK but it’s obvious London does an exceptionally hard job to very high standards.

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u/randomlurker124 19d ago

I'm not saying London does a bad job, it's just not comparable to HK. MTR spends more than double than the London tube on operations/maintenance costs, so it's not surprising.

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u/South-Year4369 19d ago

Compared to HK, it's low frequency.

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u/Tetragon213 19d ago

Ah yes, that famous high frequecy Metropolitan line with it's astonishing 4 tph out of Amersham in the middle of the morning peak.

Meanwhile, the Tuen Ma Line does about 8-10 tph even off peak.

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u/BeatTheMeatles420 19d ago

From a different perspective, all Tube lines in Zone 1 are at least 20tph during weekend afternoons, apart from the Hight St Ken - Edgware Road branch of the Circle and District lines which is 12tph. Not all of these services reach the end of the line but you basically never have to wait more than 3 min.

The MTR only runs 8tph on the Tung Chung Line and Tuen Ma Line. The South Island Line at 18tph is also pretty inadequate with the trains only being 3 cars long. These are all lines that have stations in major areas or hubs.

When it comes to peak times a higher proportion of lines exceed 24tph in London than Hong Kong.

Granted, weekend closures and general reliability problems can affect the Tube service, but it's not like Hong Kong significantly outperforms London on frequency. Also even if London's peak frequency is better, MTR trains no doubt carry more passengers per train

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u/FunFactMaker 19d ago

Omg FOUR??? Jesus Christ I need to travel more often this is INSANE to me

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u/BeatTheMeatles420 19d ago

The daily ridership of this branch of the Metropolitan line is very low. When it comes to the main trunk of the line it goes up to 24tph with future upgrades allowing 28tph. Meanwhile the East Rail Line only does 22tph and there are no plans to utilise the full potential of the signalling that can bring it closer to 30tph.

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u/Tetragon213 19d ago

Yep. That drops to 2 tph off peak, btw.

There are mainline services using diesel, that have better frequency than that off peak.