In Budget 2012, the Government is setting aside $1.1 billion for the purchase of 550 buses and to meet their running cost for the next 10 years. I wish to suggest that the budget for public transport be used in the following ways:
- Provide express bus services to operate between the major bus interchanges in the town centers, with minimal stops along the way
- Provide feeder services to operate with the towns to provide a fast, low cost and convenient way to bring the residents from their homes to the trains stations or bus interchanges and back home
- Consider the use of the small buses for the feeder services
- Allow the the express and feeder services to be operated by a wider selection of operators and not be restricted to the large listed companies.
- Regulate the fares on these services as a significant share of the cost is funded by the government
This new public transport infrastructure can complement the existing services by bringing commuters to the transport hub and can also act as a backup in the event of major disruption of our train services. By providing a viable alternative, it can also put competitive pressure on the existing operators to moderate their fare increases in the future.
If this new infrastructure makes it difficult for the existing bus operators to run viably, the Government can modify the vehicle and ERP charges for public transport to achieve a level playing field.
5 comments:
Hi Mr. Tan,
Personally i feel that your idea of public transport system is very good and practical.
However i do not think that your idea has reached any of the minister or the committee (in LTA) who are planning the public transport system.
The reason is, minister has no prior experience in public transport industry, they are just following "recommendation" from consultant or management in LTA. Most of the time they are play safe by following the current direction, and don't want to raise out something new like your idea of public transportation system.
I would suggest that you can pass your idea to any of the MP, be it from ruling or opposition party, so that your voice can be raise to parliament.
Thanks.
@9:18 am
Hi Freemanland,
I have written similar letters on this suggestion and they were published in the newspapers.
I did not get any response from LTA or the Government. I had also written directly to the Minister for Transport, whom I know personally. I did not get any reply from him or his staff (and he has many highly paid staff who can reply to me).
I have also written this letter to the Today paper and the Straits Times.
Hi Mr. Tan,
I really appreciate your effort in doing this for us. you are good man.
I am also sadden by the fact that the authority is shunning away all these good ideas, which makes our life better. (which is what they suppose to do).
However, they only care about their own rice bowl (me too!), and made decision from their own perspective.
I think the conspiracy theory would be there is "conflict of interest" between the "Authority" and the "Public Transport Operator". If we check the background of those board of directors, we would get the answer (some of them are ex-civil servant).
We really hope Singapore to have a great leader very soon, to pull back our country on track.
Thanks
Govt has been ignoring TKL's suggestion so far.
The reason is simple, being the main shareholders of Comfort and SMRT, Govt would never wan to share these 2 golden geese with private transport operators.
Another more obvious reason is they have been monopolizing the transport system for decades, they fear and dread losing this control, like they fear losing control of the MSM.
So TKL may cajole and prod for years till the cows come home, it will be "sai hei".
Meanwhile, we love visiting our expatriate son in Hongkong, getting around is such a breeze with the mini buses.ni
Yes, Mr Tan . Your proposals make sense. Not that announcement of S$1.1 Billion alone. I was also wondering what Public Listed bus operators who make profit every year need
Government , hence tax payers support !
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