Bus passengers exceed pre-pandemic levels in January

The average daily bus passenger volume in January this year has exceeded 626,000, which is a slight increase of 0.5% compared with the same period in 2019.

In a recent Transport Advisory Committee meeting, Transport Bureau director Kelvin Lam noted that buses carried an average 590,000 passengers per day in 2023, with a total of 210 million passengers.

The committee said that with the upcoming Chinese New Year, authorities will pay close attention to the situation with bus companies and add special bus services based on passenger demand.

The Times has previously noted that it has been a struggle for many to hop on the bus – particularly going to and from the center to Cotai.

Reports from readers have stated that the buses’ capacity has been largely exceeded during most hours of the day and not just during peak hours, claiming that, in some cases, buses carry almost double their stated capacity.

In a previous comment to the Times, DSAT said that buses are not over capacity, but “with the gradual recovery of Macau’s tourism industry, the number of passengers on public buses continues to rise.”

As for traffic accidents involving buses, there were a total of 569 traffic accidents attributable to the two buses last year, which is an increase of 25% compared with 454 cases in 2022, but a decrease of 22% compared with the 736 cases in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic. Staff Reporter