Background
After CMB's heyday in the 1960s and 70s, its service quality started to deteriorate in the 1980s, with service delays and aging vehicles.
On 30 November 1989, CMB staff went on a strike due to problems on retirement pay. CMB services were completely suspended, and traffic on Hong Kong Island ran into chaos. The most severe situation occurred in Southern District, which had no MTR service, to an extent that even police vehicles were mobilized to provide transport services. Citybus operated temporary routes to deal with the situation. The Government decided to rearrange bus services on the Island.
In 1990, Citybus applied to start three non-franchised routes, namely 37R, 90R and 97R, all serving between Southern District to Admiralty. In March the same year, Citybus applied to operate the route 12A, which CMB had previously requested to be cancelled due to low patronage. The application was approved, and services by Citybus commenced in September 1991 with air-conditioned double deckers.
Later, seeing no improvement in CMB's services, the Government decided to re-tender 26 of CMB's routes to another company. Two companies applied, namely Citybus and Stagecoach. Since Stagecoach had no experience on operating routes in Hong Kong, Citybus won the tender. The routes were operated by Citybus in effective from 1 September 1993.
Read more about this topic: Network 26
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)