Hong Kong’s KMB launches first bus route with women drivers only, sets up rest facility for them
- Operator arranges for women to run Tin Shui Wai-Yuen Long route, says it wants to increase share of female drivers from 8 to 10 per cent
Franchised bus firm KMB has launched Hong Kong’s first route with women drivers only and set up a rest facility that prioritises female workers at terminuses as part of its efforts to buck gender stereotypes.
The city’s biggest bus firm opened the rest facility that prioritises women at the Tin Shui Wai town centre bus terminus on July 1, the same day it arranged for female drivers to take over Route 69 in the New Territories, which runs between the district and Yuen Long.
It is also exploring another suitable route that women drivers can exclusively take charge of.
Kenny Kan Hok-hei, head of the firm’s corporate communications and public affairs department, said on Thursday: “When searching for jobs, most women think that to be a bus driver at KMB, you have to be male, or that we’re mostly looking for male employees.
“Through these new facilities that prioritise women, we can further encourage them to consider bus driving as a favourable job opportunity for them and change the impression that bus driving is a male-dominated role.”
The company’s head of operations, Douglas Mak Shing-pong, said that only 8 per cent of KMB’s bus drivers were women and it hoped to raise the proportion to 10 per cent “in the future”.
