An interesting ethical dilemma cropped up on my local green minibus the other day. Of course this is unusual; discussions of moral philosophy are not common on the 69K, but there it was.
To understand the issue at stake we must briefly explain that there are three ways in which your Octopus card in the special elderly version, now known as Joyyou, works on public transport. On the MTR your entry and exit are recorded. The machinery knocks $2 off your Octopus and bills the government for the rest of what the journey would have cost.
On big buses the situation is different. Your Octopus is read when you get on, but not when you get off. So the charge assumes that you travel to the end of the line. Of course the fare drops as the end of the line gets closer, but if you get off early that is the government's tough luck. You still pay $2 but the government is charged for the whole trip, including the part you weren't on the bus for.
This wrinkle in the system is the source of some anguish among transport officials, because they suspect that some people are avoiding queues or ensuring a seat by getting on unpopular long route buses for short trips.
Minibuses feature a system of their own. There is a button on the Octopus reader. If you press it the default setting – the fare to the end of the line – is replaced. The machine cycles through the possible fares, and if you plan to get off early you can choose the appropriate one.
We Joyyous elderly folk do not have to worry about this, which is perhaps just as well. Our other local green minibus route, the 811, is notorious for the grumpiness of its drivers. This is because it has a complex range of fares, so the drivers are constantly asked which one is applicable by baffled passengers.
Well, on my rare minibus excursions I simply dab the Octopus, which costs me $2. But this, according to our local street philosophers, may be wrong. If I am traveling to the end of the line the government is charged the rest of the fare, which means currently about five bucks. If I am getting off earlier I can push the fare change button and the government will accordingly cough up only the lower fare, minus my $2.
The person who raised this issue suggested that those of us who were not adjusting the government's contribution according to the length of our trips (I must admit that in my case it had not crossed my mind that this was possible, but still …) were increasing the government's already considerable financial problems and were accordingly guilty of antisocial behaviour.
This view did not go unchallenged. Some passengers thought that as the government's money was our money there was no reason why we should not decide to use some of it to support our local minibus company, an important and unsubsidised public service.
Pessimists noted that the passenger getting a $2 trip had nothing to gain by pushing the button, and the driver had nothing to gain by encouraging it. So it was not very realistic to expect people to take the trouble. Underlying these arguments, perhaps, is the changing relationship between Hong Kong people and their government in recent years.
This point seems lost on local lawmakers, some of whom have been dangerously keen to abolish or curtail the whole $2 ride scheme. Be careful, gentlemen. It is the public's general suspicion that some legislators are there to help the people, and some to help themselves. Cutting benefits to which you are not entitled could put you in the second category.
Admittedly the scheme is expensive. It is expected to cost a total of about $6 billion this year. The introduction of a senile card with a picture of the holder is expected to curtail fraud considerably.
But everyone knows why the costs have gone through the roof: it was Carrie Lam's foolish decision to lower the age of eligibility to 60. Most people aged 60 are still working, officially or unofficially. Someone who is still commuting five days a week could easily make 20 subsidised trips a week, before he starts on leisure or shopping trips. After the change was made the number of subsidised trips a day almost doubled, from 480,000 a day in March 2022 to 890,000 in March last year.
But withdrawing or curtailing benefits of this kind has problems of its own. It is a commonplace of behavioural economics that losses produce more pain than the pleasure produced by gains of similar size. This means that if you give the public something, and then take it away, we do not all return to where we started. We are all pissed off.
So we have here an interesting dilemma for the Financial Secretary. Still, looking on the bright side, Hong Kong is well placed to weather the coming increase in the proportion of elderly people in the population. This is because, compared with many other advanced societies, it is extremely sparing in providing pensions.
The only non-mean-tested benefit is the fruit money, which is paltry. The other benefits, which are less paltry, are only for those who can prove their poverty. So must of us dinosaurs do not get much for our years of dutiful taxpaying. Cheap rides are welcome. If the government wants to reduce the costs of the scheme without offending beneficiaries in the 60-65 age range, it might consider switching the concession off during rush hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment