Section 5 - Public Transport Public Transport Hong Kong has a diverse multi-modal public transport system, comprising a Mass Transit Railway, a tramway, franchised buses, public light buses, taxis, non-franchised buses, a funicular cable tramway and ferry services, extending to almost every part of the territory. Rehabus services are also available for persons with mobility difficulties. Public transport patronage decreased slightly by about 0.6% in 2009 when compared with 2008 to 11.34 million passengers per day. There was an increase of railway patronage by 1.6% over last year. The railway system, which carried 4.26 million passengers per day in 2009, is the largest passenger carrying mode. Coming next were the franchised buses, which carried 3.81 million passengers per day in 2009, representing an decrease of about 1.6% against 2008. Railways, being the most environmentally friendly form of mass transport, will continue to expand in network. It will form the backbone of Hong Kong's transport system with other modes playing a supplementary but still important role to ensure a choice of services by commuters. There were continuing improvements in the quality of franchised buses. By end 2009, about 97% of the franchised buses were air-conditioned and about 70% were Euro II or above buses with less emission. To ensure more efficient use of bus resources and to provide passengers with more choices of routes, bus-bus interchange schemes were promoted. In 2009, a total of 9 bus-bus interchange schemes were introduced, increasing the total number of schemes to 237 schemes. The market share of ferry remained at 1.2% in 2009 with an average of 140,300 passengers daily. As at end 2009, there were altogether 14 franchised and licensed ferry operators running 26 passenger ferry routes and 2 dangerous goods vehicular ferry routes for services at the harbour and to the outlying islands.