KMB Promotes Safe Driving Culture – Caring Passengers and Bus Captains

To provide safe and reliable bus services for its passengers, KMB is dedicated to enhancing bus captains’ awareness of safe driving by producing a new handbook on bus captain safe driving. The handbook includes driving regulations and points to note about safe driving, covering every aspect of bus captains’ daily work. This will help to foster a proper and safe driving attitude by promoting every step that can achieve safe driving, to ensure the safety of passengers and other road users. A cross-department safety committee was also established in December 2009 to enhance the education of bus captains and the monitoring of speeding, so as to improve the safe driving performance of bus captains.

KMB’s Operations Director, Mr. Tim Ip, said, “We have made reference to our past operations management experience in compiling this safe driving handbook for the easy reference of bus captains. The handbook has comprehensive descriptions of safety measures covering the daily workflow of bus captains such as locating the bus at the depot, driving the bus, arriving at a bus terminus and driving the bus back to the depot after service. We would like to convey a message to bus captains that all the points mentioned in the handbook are the keys to safe driving, and bus captains should not overlook any one of them.”

The content of the Bus Captain Safe Driving Handbook (Photo 1) includes working regulations of bus captains and the Road Users’ Code of the Transport Department, introducing safety items in different environments such as at the depot, on the road and at the bus terminus. Driving tips are highlighted in the handbook to remind bus captains to maintain sufficient stopping distance when driving so as to allow enough time for judgement and reaction, and to adopt the concept of defensive driving, which emphasises the importance of driving attitude, techniques, judgement and patience. Bus captains are also reminded to pay special attention to road situations and to maintain gentle and smooth control of the throttle, steering wheel and brakes when setting off, changing lanes, turning, changing speed, driving downhill, stopping, and negotiating traffic lights and roundabouts.

KMB has already distributed the Bus Captain Safe Driving Handbook to all bus captains and required them to read it carefully and execute the safety measures mentioned in the handbook.

KMB also established a cross-department safety committee in December 2009 and a series of measures will be launched to further enhance safe driving of buses. The sub-group on enhancing bus captains’ awareness of safe driving has set out its plan and started distributing a handy “Safe Driving Card” (Photo 2) to bus captains as well as placing posters at bus termini to remind bus captains of safe driving. This year, KMB will launch a new award scheme and competition to encourage bus captains to achieve the target of reducing accidents. A database of potentially hazardous areas will be established and uploaded onto the staff website. Driving tips for each bus route will also be provided to bus captains.

Since November last year, three nights of laser gun checks have been added in various areas including Sha Tin, Tseung Kwan O, Northern Lantau, Tsing Yi and Tsuen Wan. The pass rate of laser gun checks shows an upward trend, going up from 89.28% in Novermber 2009 to 92.7% in Decemeber 2009. Considering the effectiveness of this arrangement, KMB will continue to strengthen the laser gun checks by increasing the checks to twelve days per month (including both day and night). To enhance bus captains’ awareness of the monitoring system, KMB has since November last year issued internal posters giving the monthly results of the monitoring, including the pass rate of bus captains’ performance and the percentage of bus captains entitled to the safe driving bonus. The result of monitoring for November 2009 shows that the pass rate of bus captains remains at a high level of 97.76%, while 98.3% of bus captains were entitled to the safe driving bonus. In view of the professional working attitude of our bus captains, we are confident that we will be able to continuously achieve high pass rates.

In addition, KMB is actively pursuing the provision of toilets for bus captains at its bus termini so that bus captains are able to make better use of their rest time. We are applying for the provision of chemical toilets at Lai Yiu Bus Terminus and Cho Yiu Bus Terminus and will continue to pursue the provision of toilets at other termini in need.

At the same time, KMB is progressively enhancing the dining facilities at its bus termini. In addition to providing staff canteens and staff rest areas at bus termini, we have noticed that more and more staff members like to bring their own meal box in recent years. As such, we have equipped 50 additional termini with microwave ovens and refrigerators, and will study the feasibility of adding kiosks at other termini for microwave ovens and refrigerators.

Mr. Ip added, “All these measures demonstrate our determination to provide pleasant and safe journeys to our passengers, as well as in supporting our bus captains in safe driving. We hope that while our passengers are enjoying safe and comfortable journeys, our bus captains also work happily.” 


 

Photo 1 - Bus Captain Safe Driving Handbook

Photo 2 – Safe Driving Card