7 August 2003

Octopus Extends to Red Minibuses

Octopus Cards Limited is pleased to announce that Octopus has been introduced to 13 red minibuses, offering around 3,000 passengers a day the benefits of cashless payments. The first red minibuses to take the service are those on the circular route between Bute Street and Hunghom.

The extension to the red minibus industry is another milestone of Octopus – helping it to expand cardholder convenience to as many modes of public transport as possible and also to serve smaller-sized transport operators.

There are currently 2,515 green minibuses, running on 299 routes accepting Octopus.

"The green minibuses have been a great success with both the passengers and the operators" said Mrs Cindy Cheng, Sales & Marketing Director of Octopus Cards Limited. "We are pleased that the same convenient service can be offered to the red minibuses. This will help them to attract more passengers, speed up the boarding and alighting time, and reduce the costs of handling coins."

Octopus Cards Limited was established in 1994, with 6 major transportation companies in Hong Kong as shareholders. Octopus, and is now the world's leading and most pervasive smartcard payment system. Today, over 9 million cards are in circulation, with the system handling on average over 7 million transactions a day, amounting to HK$50 million. Octopus currently has over 210 service providers covering all public transport, parking, retail shops, vending, schools, leisure facilities and access control.

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