The new pricing for the JoyYou card comes into effect in April, and the local media have been making a big fuss about it.
It’s very simple: if the fare is HK$10 or less, you will continue to pay HK$2 and the government will pay the rest to the transport operator. If it’s more than HK$10 you pay 20%, and again the government pays the rest.
Most bus, minibus and MTR journeys are less than HK$10. The maximum is around HK$30, so for that the JoyYou fare would be HK$6. Meaning that if you are currently paying HK$2 for a long journey on the MTR, it could triple.
But that is roughly 60p (UK) / 80c (US). In London, buses are £1.75 and the minimum fare on the Underground is £2.20. So, by international standards it’s still very reasonable.
The problem (as I pointed out earlier) is that bus and minibus fares are normally based on taking the bus to to its terminus even if you are just travelling a short distance. It has been like that for a long time, and everyone ought to be aware of it, but I suppose that if you’d been paying HK$2 for a while (potentially 14 years) you might possibly have forgotten. But it makes sense to discourage people from taking long-distance routes for short journeys.
The other reform, a cap of 240 concessionary trips per month will be introduced next year according to The Standard – Revised $2 transport subsidy scheme to take effect next Friday
Needless to say, I have written about this before:
Ordinary Gweilo 
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