KMB monthly pass purchase experience

▲ Double decker bus ferry boat track system

There is a kind of mentality that you want to eat all you can eat at a buffet. Since I had already paid 800 yuan for the first time of the month, I naturally wanted to use up my ten daily journeys, and I didn't want to let myself take advantage of KMB. Because of this idea of "exhausting", it actually restricts transportation options. Even if there is a faster way to get to the destination, I will consider changing to KMB for a few trips, using the same trip, or even cheaper minibuses. More time to go to that same place. In the first week, I was still trying to use seven or eight trips a day, but after another week there was no such compulsion for exhaustion.

▲ Apple Pay Octopus monthly pass transaction record. The pick-up location could not be displayed, nor was the bus number recorded.

The freedom brought by "ten journeys": even if there are two or three stops, I would consider the routes with frequent but expensive fares, such as the 24-mile 307 or 968 crossing the sea. Or go to Sham Shui Po/North Point across a large area, and go home for cheaper meals/food.

▲ KMB’s application for checking the arrival time. However, there are too many advertisements in the official application, and every time a page is turned, a full-screen video that needs to wait for the countdown will pop up, hindering the query.

KMB points: Every month you buy a corresponding 780 points, which can be used to exchange for some epidemic prevention supplies and KMB model stationery. Usually, if you take $0.1, you will get 0.1 points, but the expiration system is a bit complicated. In short, if you have enough points, change something quickly, and don’t lose. No matter whether you are a monthly pass user or not, if you have crossed the sea line and recorded the license plate of the car you are on in the KMB app, you will also get one point after eight days. At the beginning of the month, I was still actively earning points, but I saw that there were too few gifts that could be exchanged, so I gave up in the middle of the month. By the way, the KMB monthly pass comes with a YAS bus insurance, which basically does not cover anything. But since it is a gift, you might as well download the app for self-registration.

▲ Traffic information from Apple Maps. CityMapper also has a special function to help people pick out the routes applicable to the KMB monthly pass , but basically you can tell which bus company a certain route is by looking at the route number.

Bus stops and on-board facilities: Some of the more popular bus stops will have a stop number such as T3 representing Kwun Tong city center. In the same place, there may be different station names, such as Victoria Park/Central Library (depending on the direction). In addition, the KMB bus stop reporting will sometimes fail. You need a map app to know the current location and the stop you are about to go to. You need to be extra careful when trying new routes.

By the way, let’s talk about the different specifications of KMB buses. Most of the cars with the new all-red “City Pulse” logo have fork power; for the old KMB, only the seats on the opposite sides of the downstairs/the rearmost seats on the upper floors have USB charging first. bit. And although the car provides a few 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi, it is useless to disconnect from time to time.

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Left: NWFB 307 of the joint venture bus route
Middle: The USB charging plug on KMB Right: The license plate number of the cross-harbour bus and the credit card and QR code transaction terminal that KMB is often "suspended"

Bus routes jointly operated by multiple companies: most of them are cross-harbour tunnel routes with a prefix of 1. Monthly passes are not applicable to non-KMB/KMB monthly passes. KMB operates routes other than Airport A Long Win Bus, which are more in Hong Kong Island. For New/Citybus, you often have to wait for five to eight non-KMB buses to get on the KMB schedule (but several times, two KMBs of the same number arrive together...).

Try different combinations of routes to the same destination: due to multiple transfers, the traffic time is significantly increased, but you can also see different urban landscapes. It seems that if you are not in a hurry from Tai Po to Central, in addition to taking a 307 directly, you can actually try to take the 74X to Kwun Tong apm first, and then transfer to the denser 619 to IFC, depending on which one has more seats/ Come first, the price is similar even if there are more stops in the middle.

If you see a special attraction in the middle, you can get off the bus at any time. After exploring, you can continue the journey on the same bus, without worrying about the fare. If you use a monthly pass, there will be no tunnel transfer, and the transfer will be counted as two journeys. However, it is rarely enough for ten journeys per day during the whole month.

In addition to the new year, the transportation company will increase the fare. If you need to cross the sea/long-distance commute frequently, you can calculate the difference between the monthly pass and the transportation allowance to see if it will be cheaper.