Singapore’s public transport will switch to distance-based fares from tomorrow, 03 July 2010. The following is the National Solidarity Party’s press release on the change.
We are greatly disappointed by the new fare system that the PTC intended to implement on 3rd July 2010. Our recent research on SMRT as well as LTA Public Transport websites shows that almost all the MRT fares that we have checked from different lines have increased quite substantially.
Please refer to the following table for our findings:
We are not able to do a complete table on the various fare comparisons for all possible rides but from our sample findings, it shows that fare increase resulted from the new Distance Fare system ranges from 3.75% to more than 7%.
The PTC has not made such straight forward indications when they try to convince Singaporeans that most of them will enjoy lower fares for their daily travels on public transport. The PTC should stop misleading Singaporeans with its assertion that most Singaporeans would benefit from this new fare system. PTC should be more truthful upfront by publishing the whole matrix of comparisons between fares for MRT rides between all possible combinations.
Any fare increase more than 2% in such simple straight forward MRT rides is totally unacceptable as wage increase for many of the lower wage earners who utilize public transport most do not have much increment on their wages.
Many Singaporeans rely on MRT for their travelling needs and there is little alternative to MRT rides without wasting great amount of time in interchanging between buses and being trapped in traffic jams. Such enormous outrageous hike in fares is totally unacceptable for a monopoly like SMRT.
On the other hand, it is impractical to expect bus commuters to waste time changing buses during peak hours just to “enjoy” any lower fares. Such “lower fares” may only be lower in comparison with the new long haul trunk services.
We believe that even with such “lower fares”, it will still be higher than the old fares for long haul rides. PTC should present to Singaporeans the comparison between NEW and OLD fare structures for some main trunk services.
We strongly condemn PTC for its attempt to implement such a fare system which is in fact an outrageous hike in fare in disguise.
Goh Meng Seng
Secretary General of the 13th CEC
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I know a lot of people who have to take bus to MRT station because they live beyond a 15-20 minute walking distance radius from an MRT station.
Vote Raymond Lim out as well.
Now I wonder how they calculate inflation.
No biggie. Just ask CNA to go grab some pinheads on the street to say: “Well it is only a few cents… I think it is ok.” These pinheads are always there.
Every time there are some price hikes they are always there on TV giving the same answer (plus some amateurish TV editing). Almost like those fruit stands that always appear out of nowhere in high speed car chases in hollywood movies. They are always there!
Err I’m not sure if it applies to all, but I think those who need to transfer bus/mrt might actually face a reduction in fees.
You can check it out here http://www.publictransport.sg/publish/ptp/en/distancefare.html
Single trips including buses cost more though
Given the current state of public transport, it is horrendous to think the Public transport committee allows this so called change in fare calculation to pass.
Currently, the quality in SMRT is terrible.
1. Trains are often late, up to 6-8 mins during PEAK HOURS.
2. People are PACKED into the trains- although Singaporeans are often at fault with the “ghost in the centre cabin” syndrome.
3. Trains are OFTEN STUCK DURING PEAK HOURS.
What kind of service standards are these? The only adjustment in fares should be a reduction, or slight discount, due to the increase in discomfort of the commuters.
Plus the risk of terrorist attacks form the lack of security at the depot, it is truly appalling that the spike in fees are allowed.
Already they are enjoying a MONOPOLY in terms of the public transport and the extra money they have earned from renting out spaces in the trains stations.
What is the overheads cost does the company have to bear. How much are they paying for the MRT stations land usage.
Is the govt charging them rental fees?
If so, is it justifiable for the govt to charge them so high, since they are the only rail transport operator in Singapore?
If not, then their overheads should be quite minimal. and given the current commuter rates, they should be earning a whole lot more, and they are still greedy?
Or is the SMRT is not truly profitable and they are actually getting us to pay for the new line developments or projects that they have on hand
Without competition, things will stink. Lets have more competition and more diversity in Singapore and not let anyone institution dominate our lives.
Is there even the starting bus fare of $0.69 anymore? I pay $0.91-$1.01 from $0.69 for a 5 or 6 stop bus journey . That’s highly ridiculous considering it’s less than 10 minutes.
There is no possible justification for the public transport fare charges to be on a ‘distance-based’.
The current fare was already structured to encourage passenger to use public transport by giving fare discounts whenever the passenger switch from one mode to the other.
With fares charged on a ‘distance-base’ method, it will surely increase the cost to a public transport commuter.
Was the Singapore commuter’s interest considered when this fare method was decided on ?
Or has it again been based on profits for the transport operator – who has already been declaring annual profits over the successive years ?
Should this be in anticipation of a bigger wage increase to the CEO of the public transport company ?
So all the commuters in singapore have been fooled!!
This time around,they disguised the fares increases in the trains and buses as’distance-based’!!
Why?? because the $million minister has already committed himself by saying that
‘the increase in bus and train fares are not correlated with the increase in the oil prices’
He has shot himself in the foot, so any future increase in the transportation fares, the reason cannot be the oil price
increase!! That’s why they come out with this ridiculous ‘distance-base’ thingie!!
At first , they even told us that you can save up to 20% for long distance travel, this was debunked by some postings here, when they actually travelled and found out that was not what the transport authorities claimed!!
They are making millions $$$ record breaking profits year in and year out and they keep increasing the fares!!
As of lst July, almost all essential commodities and utilities have increased
by at least 10 to 20 % across the board!!
Have the workers and employees’ wages
increased intandem??
Watch and observe you people out there, the price hike seems to kick off from one area to another, from singpower then public transport, then now erp to another pay as you drive scheme, looks like they are all in to make a final sweep out of the monopolized market, and yet singaporeans all still LL.
no wonder got flood…I foresee their 薪水 going up also.
How about the poorer families? Has the school pocket fund been increased for these people? How about the increase in utilities, guess not.
When Goh Chok Tong tells people to trust them how to. Even PTC is not thorough in scrutinizing the fare change who else can we trust? Better vote the PAP out early before they made life even more difficult.
ACACIA
School pocket fund? u wait long long, the “Three Legs Party” will ask people to contribute thru the shittime.
It seems that the Pro Alien Party is not satisfied with the public transport being switched to a ‘distance-based’ fare – and is also targetting Singaporeans who drive also by extending the reach of ERP via SATELLITE.
One satellite over Singapore will not need the investment to install overhead gantries at any and every entry-exit points.
One satellite will be sufficient to monitor any and every location to be a payment point.
One satellite can track the movement of every vehicle movement throughout the whole island.
One satellite can be easily programmed to charge every vehicle making a turn into any street.
Will Singaporeans ever know when the future ERP device deduct from the cash card ?
The whole island will soon be a money collecting machine for the PAP.
TIME FOR CHANGE FOR A BETTER TOMMORROW
electricity goes up. train run by electicity so fair go up also lor…
next petrol go up they say train run on petrol.
if want cheap then employ pusher worker.
each train will be push by human. lol more cheap but slowly2 lor
ENOUGH LA PAP!!! WE SINGAPOREAN DON’T NEED YOU ANYMORE!!!
F$$$ YOU AND WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT YOU SICK HEAD!! MINISTERS
PTC shows no responsibility to the commuting public and hookwink the public by telling us that many will gain by the restructure.
Gerald Ee as Chairman, please do not keep quiet. You give the go ahead for the restructure. Say something or throw in the towel and retire in your ivory tower when the majority of s’poreans are fighting for a decent living.
You dropped the bombshell to increase fares and said it is only a restructure and also inconvenience the old folks and public by asking everyone to change buses to train or to buses for cheaper ride. What nonsense are you talking about??
You just received your GST package… Now it’s back back time.
As long as we have a mental constipation junky hoggin’ onto the CEO chair, prevailing day is a dream far far away.
I always suspect the PTC is nothing but an extension of the Transport Ministry carrying out the latter’s wishes! It is disguised as an independent committee but everyone knows who are the personalities represented in the committee!
Singaporeans, me included, are a pitiful lot unless of course we changed the one-party system to a two-party system then the politicians will know who’s the boss!!
again and again have been told. every time
the government give package there is always take back package.
once package given. every authorities and all will come to rip you off more then given.
unless we singaporeans want a change we have to vote out as much pap as possible.
this will lead to a change that singaporeans will benefits.
if you singaporeans think that they will help and they will hold our hands then go on and vote them.
i swear to god that this election if pap win then you singaporeans can take it as this singapore know as singapura is already been sold to foreigner and no longer our land.
just mark our words and see. don’t be surprise if you end up with even higher debt with governemnt and even heavier debt in your housing and living cost resulting in great pain.
you will have to work more then 12hours to repay their debts while they sleep with their millions dropping into their pockets.
if singaporeans still fear the government will trace them if you vote opposition then live with it and die with it. good bye!!
if your owe gahmen money and if you die
they will dig your grave and make you stand in court of law. if you fail to turn up in court within 14days from the day you died then warrant of arrest will be issue against you. you will be charge in court and face imprisonment not less then lifetime in jail sentence. you will then be reburied after you serve the jail term if only you PAY FOR YOUR GRAVE!
singapore new law.
guys i say $1 a day and one month i safe $30 donate it to 3 old folks to let them buy their meals.
our DEAR LKY if had save just 1million a month that would be 12 million a year and in 50year would be 600 MILLIONS.
wow that is a minimum. what is the sum now in his pocket? and still say singaporeans must work even harder?
he is already in his trillion dude. in 50years and he is still not making?
i’ll say bullshit!
in 50years we still have to work hard?
i’ll say bullshit@
in 50years we still can’t stand the cost of living?
i’ll say time to change.
vote pap out this election
I am so sick of these bastards taking every opportunity to raised cost. Hoped they all gets cancer and understand the true meaning of ‘pain’ too. When these bastards die, instead of people going to pay respect to them like Dr. Goh, people will go and spit on their coffins.
As if they care.
They inflate the public debt away making millions while we suffer.
Yes, each time some govenmental bodies implement something, we cant help but become very suspicious. We will ask what is the Motive behind: and we are very certain its not something of welfare of the people but of Money.
Is this still what they call a ‘livable’ singapore when trust does not exist?
money money money……..it is time to roll.
cha cha cha hey…cha cha cha hey…
lky and familees is dancing to their wealth and freedom of speech and freedom of money and freedom of kicking our assss….whilst we keep voting them. did you guys see the video clip that lee siang loooongs will fix the opposition and buy in vote to win this election?
they will buy china voters. no worries win pap win……
It is a sad state of affair that singapore is not what it appears. the government shows the world only the good aspects of singapore,developments,
beautiful buildings, good roads,orderly matchbox housing,etc, but beneath it are unhappy singaporeans who work like shit to help Pay-And-Pay build singaporea, did NS, only to find their place taken over by foreigners.
Like all Motive driven by Money, i believe now they have enough Foreigners to take the train. No wonder why the CEO said you (singaporeans) can choose not to take. Now we question what is the main objective of public transport? it cannot be a social service anymore, for the definition of the term ‘social service’ has changed in this singpore or does not exist at all.
mean while you doing your 2in half years of NS. do you know how many foreigners have jump into singapore in that years? do you know that they have experience and expanding before you can even breath the minit you finish your NS? 100 thousand NS personal serve NS for 2 in a half years. 500 thousand and more of foreigners employ by company. you think company will be waiting for you singaporeans?
do you know that the ceo will be selling off her mercedez and will be buying a lamborgini? hmm…fair up ma..so she must have a more comfortable ride with even faster. we singaporeans just suck up our balls.
i appreciate if readers could read this.
we singaporeans are rich at our own wealth and land and if we would be working for long hours year after years by now we already have lots of savings and reserve in our banks. to be honest we singaporeans are very hard working. you name it we do it. but why do we still suffer till now is because lky choose to make us this way by stealing our money away from and giving below what is enough for us. who is he to earn our millions and billions? who is he to take our billions? who is he to name himself minister mentor??
we have to vote them out and not even a single chance should be given. if this is what singaporeans think that lky will give you brighter future then just prepare your grave and pay in advance to be buried alive.
just look at brunei and their citizen there. their citizen are well taken care by the government. hard to get the citizen there if you apply coz the government don’t want to abuse his own citizen by promises after promises. and he did what he said.
but singapore?? lky sell our land whole sale and now sell us to foregners whole sale.
we have become the laughing stock by the foreigners for being fear of the government even we are right but we still lick lky feet and get stamped
True-blue singaporeans,
It’s about time that we should think about our children’s future when we go to the polls.
If you feel that policies were getting unpopular and unreasonable eversince LHL team took over, imagine what our children will face if these blood suckers will to win this election again and again.
They are so arrogant that they can just increase anything as they like, (e.g. utilities, fares, property tax,..) and you can’t do anything but suck thumb.
Cost of living is going up now and the cost increment will not stop, especially if they increase the GST to 10% after this election, that i believe will happen.
For those pro-PAP, don’t give me the crap that Singapore is safe, stable, blab, blab,..
Are we really safe, as compared to 10 years ago?
Are we really financially stable, as compared to 10 years ago?
Are we paying much more, as compared to 10 years ago?
So please think of our future generation when you put your cross on the ballot paper.
@ babyckh 3 July 2010
yes..,singaporeans must think of their future. enough of their fairytales story and the old man saying pahlawan and bla bla to carry the malay to earn votes.
this is it!
if this election they win. then singaporeans future are doom! they will fix all the opposition to make sure no one stand on election ever since. so this is the time opposition is there give them a chance while there are there. don’t slip your hand to put a cross on the wrong box or you will be cross permanently.
this is only fair competition.
if you not happy, don’t take, there will be more commuters out there who want to take it. like the 1 million more new people that came in over the last 10 years. they can take it, while you go take a hike, or a taxi.
that’s why having more new people is good for business – the businesses don’t have to wait for you old people before they have some business to do.
in the beginning they said all feeder fares will be cap at 15 cents, then it was 20 and 25 and now this.
what competition when all license are given out to own TH companies or GIC, you think when they said there will be competition, they will issue you outsiders with a license to operate so that smrt and sbs will die a slow death, you’re very daft.
“VOTE” for opposition, any will do and make sure they lose more than 3/4 seats.
last i see, singaporeans are still afraid of their own shadows and when one speaks of the “SHAMELESS GOV” all move away, frighten by don’t know what…
If you only take the train from Tampines MRT to City Hall, the new fare is higher than the old.
But if you take a feeder bus to Tampines Bus interchange, and then take the train from Tampines to City Hall, the new fare is lower.
Now how many people living in Tampines don’t need to take a feeder bus to Tampines Bus Interchange?
Mobile air time charges crept up $0.15 cents, from $0.10 -> did you know? if you call outside the subscription, you are going to pay 50% more. Singapore is still amongst the highest in Asia, higher than Japan and Hongkong; no real competition.
Its all beauty contests to show you manipulated stats.
You do realise that this is just 6 trips out of a possible 6006 combinations. Contrary to their.claims, there is no good reason why all 6006 trip combinations cannot be computed using our modern pc. Yet who knows if this the just the top 6 increase out of 6006 combinations.
0.1% sample size isn’t very convincing now is it. Until somebody does a complete comparison, the writers could just be fooling you as well with clever marketing gimmicks.
Once again, the PAP help me by screwing me. By the way, thanks a lot to the 66% of Stinkaporeans. Anti-pap VOTER/.
Sian a load of crap abt able to save more from what is reported on the papers! Can reporters bring in an objective view than to write some articles to favour government bodies????
For me I have a choice between an increase or decrease in fare depends on the route I take. 1 route with 1 connection has an increase of 10 cents. The other has a decrease of 30 cents which has 3 connections. Both commuting times are the same, approx. 1hr 45mins.
It is a cheap act that PTC have resorted to Deception to increase the fare. Clearly they know that it would stir more unhappiness if they were to say it directly.Aren’t they Liars then?
Are they being objective? Or are they in cahoots?
and they fined Sistic for monopolizing the ticketing scene.
it can monopolize and get away with it because its a GLC?
On weekends,I used to take SBS Service 7 from Lavender to Holland Road, one stop after Cold Storage Jelita for a part time job. It cost 69 cents on my senior citizen card.
This morning, based on distance calculation, it cost 84 cents, an increase of 21 percent.
This shows that Mr Gerard Ee, a senior citizen himself, is not doing his job to moderate our transport fares.
It’s really infuriating that he could comment that two third of commuters will pay less when a starting fare is raised from 69 cents to 73 cents overall.
@Irgen
>>>>>This shows that Mr Gerard Ee, a senior citizen himself, is not doing his job to moderate our transport fares.
I had great respect for Mr Charity (Philanthropist Dr Ee who is the father of Mr Gerard Ee), i cant say the same for Gerard.
It is the same old story of robbinghood.
White collar workers usually work in the CBD and are not required to travel long distance. It is the blue collar workers that need to wake up in the unheavenly hours of the morning for their daily long distance travel to work:
* Ah Seng living in Bedok needs to travel to Tuas;
* Ahmad living in Jurong needs to travel to Changi;
* Ah Dev living in Woodlands needs to travel to Pasir Panjang.
It is not a question of changing jobs because these people don’t have the privilege and luxury of doing so. They may end up losing their jobs to the cheap foreign workers if they job-hop.
Reservists need to travel long distance for their in-camp-training:
* Beng Seng staying in Pasir Ris needs to go to Pasir Laba camp
* Ibrahim staying in Simei needs to go to Clementi camp
* Raja staying in Yishun needs to go to Selarang camp.
Foreign Talents don’t have fixed abodes as they can rent houses anywhere and they don’t have NS liability.
I have yet to witness majority singaporeans display Disapproval for transport hikes.
Not in its 50 years , half a cENTury history.
So, this shows that singaporeans accept all transport hikes, as in majority singaporeans.
I wonder does this imply all its policies in the last 50 years?
singaporeans , pls tell me. You are the one responsible.