The main problem, as someone has already pointed out, with the
public transportation is PROFITEERING. There should be a certain
kind of limitations imposed by law upon all public transports as
to the amount of annual profits that they can have and the number
of shareholders, type of shareholders, and number of shares per
shareholder. Otherwise, the big hidden or disguised “crocodiles”
and “wolves-in-white” would continue to manipulate and “manage”
the system to safeguard their own selfish interests.

To me, as I see it, this is a new kind of corruption, which is more serious than the openly perceivable type of corruptions,
emerging and starting to take roots over the past 15 years -
starting with NKF, or course, and the Charity Sector. being
the unlucky ones to be exposed first.

I am not accusing anyone of corruption, but if the hat fits
so be it!

Our public transport problems are due to too many private cars on the road, and lack of planning of road buildup to meet the private car population growth. If people are willing to give up driving private cars and take up public transport and the public transport companies increase their passenger carrying capacity, the problem can be solved.

For this waterway transport idea to work, people need to be willing to take up this form of public transportation with feeder bus support from some service providers. The second issue is whether the waterway is really that free enough to allow such service. Another question is whether it is really effective for some heart-lander residents travel to the terminals and then from the terminal to their final destination.

The queue lines I was referring to are not actually queue lines, but lines telling people to stand in such a way so as to allow passengers to alight first.

Here’s a photo I found through Google:

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~nguyenvu/images/VT_photos/singapore/2002_12-02/356_Waiting_Raffle_MRT.jpg

As you can see, it’s not working very well. Can’t imagine how bad it’d get during peak hours.

1) bad road/traffic planning – frankly some of the congestions on the road are really created by bad road planning. This is being pretty micro here but i believe will solve the larger problem. Eg slow traffic on Orchard Rd turning into Cairnhill (after Paragon) basically because we have cars turning into Cairnhill/buses turning back to Orch/Pedestrian crossing. Another eg slow traffic on the short stretch of PIE (toward Tuas) where thomson joins in n steven exits. Of course at this point of time, solutions may range from easy ones (pedestrian directed to a bridge across traffic) to drastic ones (seal off entrance/exits like the old Kallang Bahru exit into PIE).

In any case, this LTA revamp presents a good opportunity to relook at remodelling existing roads and plan new ones too.

2) Commercial & administrative satellite town – When you have human traffic converging into one single point, you will definitely get congestion at that single point, during what we know as peak hours. Instead of furiously developing the CBD and building more highrise building to accomodate more offices (or for purpose of getting a pretty skyline), re-direct the traffic away from CBD. The govt is currently doing this but more could be done.

We can always start by moving governmental administrative offices away from CBD and centralised them somewhere else (if you let me decide, Tuas is a good plc, what with the open space, undeveloped transportation modes and numerous companies).

Naturally, those businesses closely related will also shift.

3) construction, construction, construction – unfortunately along with the development boom as well as transport revamp, many construction works is currently affecting the flow of traffic. Those people who travel frequently on roads around Circle Line will know very well. I do not foresee traffic flow to ease out in near future (aka ERP will continue to go up)
And unfortunately i think there is no solutions on this.

1. Peak hours should not be

Monday to Friday, between 8 to 9 am and 5.15 to 6.30 pm

Saturday, between 8.15 to 9 am and 1 to 2.30 pm

as of now. It MUST be lengthen to at least 2 hours to accommodate people who left early for work; people who run errands after working hours etc. (No wonder I still find a crowded train at 9pm on weekdays).

2. The running times of the trains and buses should extend to 1am in the morning. Currently we are having Cinderella syndrome in which everyone tries to take the last train or bus by the stroke of midnight (even before that as most last train or bus will leave the station before midnight). Or else they will have to face the mercy of the taxi and their increased midnight charge.

3. During the launch of the NEL, SMRT scrapped the service of several bus routes stating that it was a waste of resources and forcing everyone to take the train. Currently there are no bus that travel from punggol directly to orchard road.

We commuters demand a choice for transport alternatives (LTA if you can take the tab…)

4. Sometimes people rush in the train carriages due to the fact that they do not know when the carriage door closes. It will be a good improvement to place a indicator on the door that shows that the carriage door will close in 3.. 2.. 1.. second.

5. Another way to prevent congestion from the carriage door is that to designate 1 carriage door to be the entry point and another to be the exit point. (Very much like the bus concept). However, it will be the best to have another door installed on the carriage to allow entry to the train carriage only.

6. Every year the public transport companies apply to PTC for increase in their fare to commuters. However, PTC had approved their price hike despite that there are no improvements to their level of service. I considered MobileTV to be a hinderance than imporvement.

As of now as many of us do agree that the problems in our current public transport system having

“· Overcrowded buses and trains;
· Inadequate trip planning facilities;
· Lack of genuine competition, resulting in ever-increasing fares”

shouldn’t we commuters to be justified with a fare reduction to improve our confidence with the monopolistic transport companies?

7. The PTC have an easy job of approving a fare hike or not, shouldn’t they conduct a review that the public transport companies will have a fare reduction if they do not meet their level of service?

Is it because there are so many calls to have transparency in the PTC system and include members into the PTC whom do not have vested interested to the transport companies?

8. Recently I seen the new bus fleet service 100 to be a disadvantage to the commuters on the road. I noticed that the number “100″ sign on the bus to be very small and taking a small space on the side of the notice although lighted. As compared to the old sign, I can hardly make out the number of the service until it is “near” the bus stop. If I can’t make out the number, I persumed that the older folks can’t make out the number as well.

I don’t know if I should vote for Raymond Lim in the next election, but he is truly a waste of our taxpayers money. But I like his “flag the bus early campaign”, it is the icing on the cake on our current public system.

http://toronto.transitcamp.org/ttc/

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005952.html

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_subscriber=true&_requestid=198275&referer=/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp&reason=freeContent&productId=R0802A&OPERATION_TYPE=CHECK_COOKIE&FALSE=FALSE&TRUE=TRUE&ml_action=get-article&ml_issueid=BR0802&articleID=R0802A&pageNumber=17&ml_section=Section_1405610596#Section_1405610596

What I meant was that it may not work because we are Singaporeans. I fear that even with the queue lines, people will just ignore them. I recall an attempt by SMRT to paint such lines (though not as detailed as yours) at certain stations with personnel requesting passengers to follow them, but since efforts now have disappeared, I suppose it must have been an unsuccessful attempt.

I have reason to be hopeful. In most other places where Singaporeans have been ‘trained’ to queue (e.g., fast food restaurants, supermarket checkout counters, taxi stands, etc), there are very few incidents of queue-cutting (most, if any, are accidental). Even at bus interchanges, those people who choose not to join the ‘zig-zag queue’ will ‘guai guai’ wait until all the people in the queue have boarded the bus before boarding themselves. (Of course there are a few bad apples, but generally people are quite well behaved when conditioned to do so.) So I think introducing Japan-style queues to board the MRT might just work.

I actually don’t recall MRT ever painting such lines. But I recall some years back they had signs and staff at escalators to ask people to stand on the left. Well that hasn’t succeeded fully, but it’s better than before they started that short campaign.

Roland – Thanks for pointing out about Toronto’s TransitCamp. I think that’s a great idea which should be done in Singapore not just for transport but a lot of other national issues. Can you post a link to that for the benefit of readers who may be interested to find out more about that?

Thanks for all your comments!