One way is to open up competition to allow another transport company to be setup. However, we do not know if this will work. Look at the two television companies Mediacorp & defunct Mediaworks. Mediaworks only lasted about 3 years. On another note, any public services that had been setup should benefit the public. I took service 111 to work daily to & fro for work. Just this year alone, I’ve personally experience 5 times that service 111 broke down. Isn’t it high time to change to new buses for all double decker buses?

Thanks Isaac for a though provoking article. I read with amusement the article by the press secretary to PM titled “Political systems must improve our lives” The irony dawned on me that “our lives” meant exactly that . The lives of the political masters, the press secretary included. Going by the transport woes, has the political system in place improved our lives. Perhaps yes to all those who can afford to drive and can afford to pay the rising ERP prices, their lives has improved and will continue to improve with a pleasant drive.

To those dependent of public transport it is a daily struggle, although our first world political system with its division one ministers with Premier League salaries will conveniently provide comparisions to third world or developing countries and congragulate themselves for a job well done.

Well unlike you, many Singaporeans who are dependent on public transport do not have the opportunity or means to see for themselves a world class transport systems like the ones you had the decribed. All they have to compare is the past as a yardstick. Which the government never fails to highlight , riots included.

I believe its time people are educated on the committement and responsibility an elected government has towards its people. As the PS said , the system must improve the lives, of the “MAJORITY”.

After living overseas, I felt that the following points about Singapore’s public transport is weird and road system.
1) The timing of the buses are so totally off. If traffic condition is the problem, then send more buses, and buses can wait at the bus stop until it is time to go. Bus lanes should help too. My experience in Singapore is that waiting for the bus takes longer than the trip. Yes, incredibly.
2) Why don’t we encourage car pooling, like having a car pool lane for peak hours? Raising ERP all the time just isn’t a good solution to me.
3) The repetitive raise in fares have not seen much improvement in service. Our buses does not accommodate wheel chaired personnel, nor does it travel faster. For the record, TV Mobile is NOT an improvement. It is an advertising platform. And GPS-enabled bus-stop updating for fares is for the operators’ own benefit, not passengers.
Finally, I think proper statistics of the bus services should be available for scrutiny. For example, average waiting time of bus should be averaged over per passenger and is not equal to interarrival time of buses. So, having a person record the time of bus arrival, which I have seen personally, is simply no good.

I would also like to suggest that we make it a rule that each PTC committee member have to take public transport for a month before the annual review of fares. Alternatively, they can do that for 3 days per month, which I would think is better for scheduling. Drivers simply simply should not be deciding bus and train fares, right?

More than 20 cities in the world have zero-fare public transport – some for the metro area, some for the whole city and some for entire region. Why can’t we have zero-fare public transport for the whole of Singapore? The amount collected from vehicle related taxes, fees and charges are more than enough to fund this free service.

“Why can’t we have zero-fare public transport for the whole of Singapore?”
The answer is simple. The government here is a business entity who aim is to make supernormal profit and much more so with monopolistic practice. Even more so for the voiceless, helpless citizen which can’t know what happen to national reserve.

It is not as though the government don’t know any of the suggestions here. The main thing is that ignorance to them give them blissful wealth. Now, does any suggestions here provide supernormal profitability as current situation. Nope. So why should a business entity make themselves lose money ?

Any business-man will always act blur to suggestion when wealth is taken from them. Money smells good !

Many a times, I have observed buses, generally the long buses and the double deckers run less than half full. I can guess the reason being of bigger capacity, it takes longer for the customers to board and disembark, therefore aggravating the travel time. Shouldnt the operators utilize smaller buses, albeit more of them to boost up the numbers during peak. With the introduction of the bus lanes, the argument of the smaller buses clogging up the roads is no more legitimate than those big behemoths that are carrying a lesser load.

BTW I dont take the public transport.

“Shouldnt the operators utilize smaller buses”
Smaller buses and higher frequency means higher operational cost with escalating oil cost. Bigger buses with less frequency = higher economies of scale with packed sardine.
In business, this doesn’t justifies the cost.

See http://www.smrt.com.sg/investors/shareholding_Statistics.asp Temasek owns 54% of SMRT.

in business, CEO’s target is to achieve record-breaking revenue and profit year after year. If they can’t do it, they will have not done their job as a CEO. and what easier way to achieve it than to increase fares or cut costs.

most don’t really care about service quality if profit increases. and in this transport industry, consumers are the ones who suffer, just suck thumb and still have to take the public transport to work and getting packed like sardines.

10) dennis on September 8th, 2008 8.29 pm

As they say the tip of the iceberg.

6.5 million.

way to go.

Lets all cheer our transport operators on.
Pay and Pay, thats the Way.

If they dont profit year after year, so far thanks to the people, I think their gro’th has been extremely good. I hope they get bigger and fatter but must also be juicier bonus.

Service to the Public, indeed.

See, no one is complaining wor.

Spore is excellent and truely 1st world, not 3rd.

Hi siohand2 (#7)

I agree with your suggestion. It is not efficient to have big buses (such as the double length bus of SMRT) as it takes a longer time for passengers to board and leave the bus. It also occupies more space at the bus stops.

A big bus also means lower frequency and longer waiting time.

In Hong Kong, they use mini-buses. There are more mini-buses which run more frequently and have shorter waiting time. This is more efficient and improve service to commuters.

We have a public transport system that needs to be better managed. It is time for the Land Transport Authority and Public Transport Council to wake up, and see issues from the perspective of the commuters.

Hi Tan Kin Lian,

Those mini-buses in HK are 14 seaters. It is similar to the premium bus service in Singapore. The trade-off with these mini-buses is higher operation cost so passengers have to pay more. It will need more drivers and use more fuel to transport the same number of passengers at the peak hour.

So, the question is what is the right mix of big and mini buses and how to deploy them during the peak and non-peak hours to get the best service for the passengers and return for the operator.

Besides using smaller buses which runs frequently, I believe increasing the express bus services for longer routes would definitely improve the public transport options available. With the expension of the SMRT lines I believe such services have been reduced so as not to compete with the rail system. Which is at the expanse of the customer.

In a first world nation like S’pore, the public transport system is woefully bad.That’s why the talk about us about us having world class transport system is such a big joke. How to have a top notch system when maximising profits, not providing good service, is the priority for the operators? Much have been discussed about it and many have offered excellent advice but it would be no use if the authorities decided that the bottom line is more important than genuinely improving the terrible state of public transport here.

[...] 1st Class Transportation – TOC: PTW Week: The private public transport [...]

Dear Sarek_home,
I guess the ratio mix of jumbo buses versus mini buses, is up to the operators. The trouble is that we have bus operators who act in cohorts and therefore their decision to run it as it is , stands. The minis dont have to be so small as to take on 14 only. But it should not be as large as the long buses or double deckers. I dont think that the operational costs will be much higher.

For Listen to the people,
point to point express is good as it eleviates the jam at the MRTs. Again, this option is available to the “regular” operators and hence the higher costs. Try allowing private buses to run it, I am sure it will work

We are spending way too much to have aircon and mobile TV even for feeder buses. This has jacked up the busfares to 70 cents for a 3 stop ride for me in Bedok. Someone is creating all these addons for the benefit of the vendors

Currently Spared:

ERP *does* encourage car pooling. The cost of ERP is shared amongst the number of people in a single car, so each person in a fully occupied car pays less than someone in a singly occupied car.

Singapore’s rail system is very much less dense compared to that in cities like London. A Tube station is a short walk away from almost anywhere in London, whereas in Singapore, there are many mini-suburbs connected only by buses to their respective town centres. This has to do with how our government has planned urban development — our hub-and-spoke system. The ‘ends’ of the spokes are frequently connected only to their local hubs and the hubs are located quite far apart, meaning that people at the end of the ’spokes’ have limited transport options other than driving or lengthy bus transfers to their hubs before transferring again to a mode of hub-to-hub transport like the MRT. While no city has a perfectly uniform density, compared to cities in Europe and many cities in the US (e.g. NYC, Chicago), Singapore follows a more American suburb style of urban planning where development is concentrated in clusters that are quite far apart. Singapore’s small towns are like American suburbs. The population density is significantly above average in the small towns but there are large regions in between where it is quite low. Contrast with (for example) grid-based American cities where there is a more uniform average density of development throughout the city (thanks in no small part to the uniformly spaced grid of roads), and, as a consequence, more direct transport options and more alternative transport routes. European cities don’t usually have grids, but the point about many small interconnected roads crisscrossing the whole city, lined with roughly uniform development, applies to them as well. As a result, these cities may have the same average density as Singapore, but in reality, the people are spread over a wider expanse of area, rather than packed into town centres separated by sparsely populated regions. This kind of more uniform urban development leads to greater incentive to build a dense rail network, whereas in Singapore’s case the government will just say there is insufficient reason to provide more public transport in areas that are not hubs. Singapore’s style of development leads to a hub-and-spoke transport system that is great for those in the hubs but terrible for those who can’t afford to live in the centres of their respective neighbourhoods. The latter have extremely limited transport options, and this translates not just to being stuck with a long public transport commute but also to being confined to a few arterial roads leading out of your suburb that often get congested.

Many times I wondered what they mean by worldclass transport service. The MRTs and buses and packed to the brim most of peak hours. Although the frequency have increased, but so are the number of communters. When we pay for fares, does that mean too we should be entitled to at least a seat. Many time I have to skip buses because they are full to the brim.

We can rave and rant about inconsiderate people not filling up the end of buses but to put things in perspective, in the first place aren’t the commuters entitled to seats when they pay?

I agree whole heartedly at suggestions for LTA and planners to look at the picture objectively. We have not even reached the 6 million population put forth by them and yet we already are facing a squeeze everywhere. Can you imagine how it will be like? just drop by Orchard Road on Sunday.

Watthefish

Of late we have had new guidelines being drawn up for corporate governance after the NKF saga and the audit of several charities and associations. One of the biggest area of concern under coporate governance is the conflict of interest policies or the lack of it.

If one were to examine the structure of our system (i.e the role of the government and that of the government owned companies) the biggest concern would be conflict of interest , especially in the provision of essential public services. No where is this more apparent than in the operation of our public transport system. While we may highlight and argue for the improvement of standards, we have to address the primary issue of conflict of interest.

there’s some points I agree on the article, and some i don’t

What I agree on:
1. Bus size should be catered to the projection on passenger volume. Feeder bus in low volume area should run on mini bus rather than big bus. Take a look at Service 922 and 921 at Bukit Panjang Ring Road, frequency is 30 mins, and the bus is normally just carrying 5-10 passengers, which is a waste of resources. Mini bus is enough to carry that amount of passengers, and probably a frequency of 30 minutes is used. After all, how long does it take for the bus to circle the Bukit Panjang Ring Road?

2. Singapore public transport should operate with regulated revenue instead of profit maximising. I guess this is underway the transport review, but I’m not sure what model they are looking at. Bus Operator (SBS Transit and SMRT) should bid for the route, and their revenue is Cost + Margin as proposed by the bidding process. It is government job (i.e PTC) to look into the competitivenes of the bid without sacrificing the quality. Transport Operator thus, needs to incorporate their projected cost in bidding process (like wages, fuel cost, bus depreciating expenses). This can be done on regular annual review and adhoc basis if fuel cost escalates substantially. This eliminates redundancy cost like for the case of direct competition..

The good point from IRIS:
I find it very helpful. Of course, you need to have your handset configured to access Internet. Once you’ve done it, you only need to access favorites (like in Internet Explorer) to look at estimated bus arrival. Thus, you know when the bus will arrive without having to wait unnessarily long. If I saw the bus is arriving in 13 mins, I can afford to have tea break in coffeeshop nearby.

correction to #22…
“Frequency of 10 minutes is used rather than 30 minutes” for point 1

publish a minute-by-minute schedule – so we know exactly when the bus is arriving/leaving/interchanging etc – that’s planning a trip (as opposed to add min 40 min waiting time on average if you have to change the bus on route!!)
if switzerland can connect all its public transports – buses, trains and boats on all lakes – and publish a schedule – than can Singapore! it’s much smaller!
i find the bus system here apalling – i have lived in korea, japan and hong kong and they all do it in their much larger urban spaces a gazillion times better!!
Gabriela

The frequency of MRT arrival times during peak & off-peak should be acceptable & fine… If Singapore isn’t making its way to becoming the World Heavyweight Champion in the Population Density division! I get rude shocks at the most off-peak of off-peak hours taking the train. Crowded trains where we’re packed like sardines on the North-South line at 4+pm on a Tuesday? I didn’t know everyone knocks off this early these days! Taking the 1st train on a Saturday at 6+am at Outram, jam-packed mama of a train!

Peak hours? That’s worse. Hey, I didn’t know I was going to take the 3rd train because the 1st 2 trains were too full at Lavender on Saturday night! & the train arrival frequency was around 6 minutes!

The main problem is population density. Period. Yet, we are constantly gettin’ more & more foreigners to improve the economy. That’s right. An individual’s living space & comfort takes a backseat far far behind increased income generation through improved economy brought by increased workforce.

We may not be the best in the world, but we’re quite near the top.

For example, buses come a lot more frequently in Singapore than in most Western European countries with good public transport (Germany, Netherlands etc), where many buses come once or twice an hour.

Bus stops are also a lot more spaced out in those countries.

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