地铁如何赚钱？北京模式与港铁模式的比较
Metro Revenue Models: Beijing vs MTR
编者摘要（中文）
地铁几乎无法仅靠票价养活自己，北京与香港是两种典型答案。2025 年北京城市轨道交通运送乘客 35.76 亿人次， 但只运营部分线路的北京市地铁运营有限公司仍须依靠政府转移支付；港铁则通过“轨道 + 物业”（R+P）把物业开发、 车站零售与新线周边的土地增值回流到铁路。作者认为，两者的差别主要不在票价，而在谁获得了地铁创造的价值。 文中给出四项可迁移的安排：把公共服务义务明确定价并购买、让地铁公司在 TOD 中持有真实权益、 建立经常性非票收入、强化成本纪律——因为 2025 年 35 个城市的运营收入仅覆盖约 57.6% 的运营成本。
Terms and the two operators · 术语与两家运营方
A quick note on terms: a metro is an urban rail system — the subway or underground network that carries passengers within a city. MTR stands for Mass Transit Railway, the Hong Kong company that built and operates Hong Kong’s metro and is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Beijing Subway, by contrast, is the state-owned company operating most of Beijing’s network, and the two sit at the center of this comparison.
Why tickets never cover a metro · 为什么票款不足以覆盖地铁
Metros almost never pay for themselves through tickets, and Beijing shows how. In 2025 the city's urban rail network carried 3.576 billion passengers, but the state-owned Beijing Subway — which runs only part of the system — still cannot cover its costs from fares and depends on government transfers every year. Hong Kong's MTR offers the opposite picture: through its "Rail + Property" (R+P) model, property development, station retail and the land value created around new lines all feed back into the railway. The difference between the two is not mainly about ticket prices, but about who captures the value a metro creates.
Beijing: three legs of revenue · 北京：收入的三条腿
Beijing Subway is a fair example of the mainland model, runs about 17 lines within a network that had grown to 30 lines and 909 km by the end of 2025, and the state group behind it reported revenue of RMB 18.76 billion. The operator is expected to keep the network extensive, hold fares low and run trains frequently even on weak routes. Mainland revenue therefore rests on three legs: fares, government support, and non-fare businesses such as advertising, retail and property. According to industry data, in 2024 mainland urban rail resource businesses generated RMB 60.6 billion in non-fare revenue, about 64% of it from property.
MTR: railway and property in one company · 港铁：铁路与物业在同一家公司
MTR folds all of this into one corporate model. In its 2025 financial year it reported total revenue of HK$55.4 billion, including HK$28.9 billion from Hong Kong transport services and HK$5.1 billion from property rental and management. The striking part is property development, which delivered HK$13.2 billion of EBIT — earnings before interest and tax, a standard measure of operating profitability — and a post-tax profit of HK$11.1 billion. MTR has said plainly that station-area property development exists to help bridge railway funding gaps and keep operations viable.
| 指标 | 北京 / 大陆城市轨交 | 香港港铁（MTR） |
|---|---|---|
| 乘客量（2025） | 35.76 亿人次（北京城市轨道交通） | — |
| 网络规模（2025 年底） | 全网 30 条线、909 公里；北京地铁运营约 17 条 | — |
| 收入（2025 财年 / 年） | 北京市地铁运营有限公司所属集团 187.6 亿元人民币 | 总额 554 亿港元，其中香港运输服务 289 亿、物业租赁与管理 51 亿港元 |
| 物业开发 | 2024 年大陆城轨资源经营非票收入 606 亿元，其中约 64% 来自物业 | 物业开发 EBIT 132 亿港元；税后利润 111 亿港元 |
| 运营收入覆盖成本 | 2025 年 35 个城市运营收入约覆盖运营成本的 57.6% | 物业开发用于弥合铁路资金缺口并维持运营可行性 |
An institutional gap, not just an operating one · 差别在制度，而不只是运营
So the real difference is institutional, not just operational. Many mainland operators treat the railway as a public service first, then patch the deficit with subsidies and separate commercial arms. MTR, by contrast, sets out to capture some of the land and commercial value a railway creates before or during its development: a new station raises surrounding land values, and under an integrated model part of that uplift flows back to the railway. Hong Kong's land-lease system cannot simply be transplanted, but several pieces of the model are transferable.
Four transferable pieces · 四项可迁移的安排
The first change is institutional: move from a loose "operating subsidy" to a full public-service compensation model. If governments want low fares or politically necessary but loss-making lines, those obligations should be priced and bought as public services rather than absorbed silently. Second, give metro companies a real stake in Rail + Property and TOD — transit-oriented development, the practice of building housing, offices and retail around stations — so that part of the land-value uplift funds the railway itself. Third, build recurring non-fare revenue such as station retail, advertising and logistics, instead of relying on one-off property sales. Finally, enforce cost discipline: according to industry figures, operating revenue covered only about 57.6% of operating cost in 2025 across 35 cities, so no amount of commercial income alone can close that gap.
地铁创造的乘客价值之外，还有土地与商业价值；可持续的模型要把这部分价值系统地回流到铁路。
The lesson · 结论：地铁的价值不止在票面
The lesson from MTR is not that metros should become profit-maximizing companies, but that railways create value well beyond the ticket. A sustainable mainland model would combine transparent public-service compensation, systematic capture of station-area land value, stronger recurring commercial income and stricter cost control — keeping metro travel cheap and accessible while reducing dependence on open-ended subsidies.
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编辑说明：正文文字、数据与英文表述均照作者原稿发布，仅增加了中英分节小标题、中文编者摘要与数据摘录表。 原稿以英文撰写，未附完整引用链接；编辑部建议作者在修订阶段补充数据来源与统计口径， 以便读者复核 35.76 亿人次、187.6 亿元、554 亿港元等关键数字。