Singapore’s public transport system, the source of much angst and indeed anger in recent years, is slowly crawling itself out of the hole of such public discontent.
In Parliament on Tuesday, 11 March, Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew gave an overall picture of what his ministry has done to improve the system and resolve existing problems, and what commuters can expect in the next few years.
Mr Lui went into some details about what has been done so far.
This year, for example, will see 13 new trains delivered for the NSEWL (North-South/East-West Line) which will help ease peak hour crush.
“These trains allow us to immediately insert more trips during the peak periods, to provide additional capacity and shorten the wait for a train, within the limits of the existing signalling system.”
Mr Lui explained that the current existing signalling system has a limitation of 120 seconds intervals between trains, and thus in some instances it may not be possible to increase train frequencies, but it can be done for other stretches.
In February 2012, SMRT awarded Thales Canada the contract to replace its signalling system for the North-South and East-West lines, plus an extension. The upgrading is expected to be completed in 2018.
“So as more trains arrive over the next few months,” Mr Lui said, “we will continue to inject more into the system, targeting especially the crowded stretches for the morning peak. And then, we will also have more resources to increase the evening peak capacity. Just as importantly, the larger train fleet will also allow the operators to intensify their maintenance work, to prepare the older trains for re-signalling and to upgrade them more quickly.”
A further 42 trains will be injected into the NEL and the CCL, which are an increase of 60 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.
What this means is that in 2015 commuters “can gradually look forward to more comfortable, less crowded rides, and shorter wait times for NEL and CCL commuters,” he said.
Mr Lui also revealed that train operators are being required to increase train frequencies “so that by the third quarter of this year, passengers travelling on the North-South, East-West and North East Lines generally need not wait for more than 5 minutes for trains to arrive, except for the very early morning and very late in the night periods when train ridership is extremely low.”
It will be the same for the CCL, he added.
But improving frequencies and injecting more trains are not the only thing his ministry is doing.
“As we add capacity to existing lines, we are also adding new lines to the system,” Mr Lui said. “By 2030, we will double the rail network to 360 kilometres.”
He said that a denser network, with more interconnections, will provide more alternatives for commuters to explore in the event of a disruption.
If all goes as planned, in about 15 years, Singapore’s rail network density will be comparable to those in New York and London, the minister told Parliament.
“By 2030, our public transport system will be much more extensive, and much more accessible. And we will have some 280 train stations, about double the number we have today, scattered across the island, and 8 in 10 homes will be within a 10-minute walk to a rail station.”
Mr Lui said while density is important, at the end of the day, it is how accessible the system is to the average commuter that is important too. This, he said, is where the bus system comes in because buses connect commuters to not only the final destination but also an important part in Singapore’s hub and spoke network.
Referring to the Bus Service Enhancement Programme (BSEP), – where the government would fund the purchase of 550 buses and help pay for their operational costs for 10 years – Mr Lui said the Land transport Authority (LTA), together with the bus operators, has worked hard to deliver the programme ahead of the initial schedule.
The programme had drawn flak when the government announced in 2012 that it was injecting S$1.1bn to help the operators purchase the 550 buses.
The bus sector has always been the financial laggard in the PTOs operations, staying in the red for some years now.
This was evident when it was revealed in January when fares were hiked – that the bulk of the profits from the fare hike – which will total some S$53m – will go to fund the “financially ailing” bus operations.
“Bus operations will receive a S$48 million boost from the hike, while S$5.5 million will be allocated to MRT operations, under a new weightage in revenue allocation applied by the PTC,” the media reported.
Nonetheless, Mr Lui is pressing ahead with increasing the number of buses on the roads.
“We planned to stage it over five years,” Mr Lui said of the BSEP, “frontloaded in the first three years. But what we have been able to do is to work with them, recruit more drivers, buy more buses, and we are confident that we can deliver all 550 of these buses by the end of this year, two years ahead of schedule.”
So far, 320 of these buses have been delivered, and a further 2,200 additional trips every week across about 125 existing services have been added.
He also disclosed that peak hour loading has improved, and scheduled intervals between buses have decreased by about 1 to 5 minutes on average.
“So these are the Government-funded buses,” he said. “The PTOs themselves have contributed about 100 more buses to meet additional ridership, out of the 250 to which they had earlier committed over the 5-year period. So it’s roughly about 50 buses a year, and they have kept to that commitment.”
But the current BSEP is not sufficient and Mr Lui said he has asked LTA to work with the bus operators to further expand the programme.
“I intend to introduce another 450 or so buses over the next three years,” Mr Lui said, “on top of the 550 buses under the BSEP I mentioned starting back in COS 2012. This will bring the total number of Government-funded buses under the BSEP through this expansion to about 1,000 buses. We intend to implement the bulk of this by 2016.”
Mr Lui said that “clearly” the original S$1.1bn BSEP fund “will now no longer be sufficient to last for the originall envisioned 10 years.” Observers have said that if the same conditions applied for the expected new tranche of funds to purchase the 450 buses, the government could inject a further S$1bn into the programme.
But some have raised concerns about the government injecting more funds into the PTOs to help them in such a way.
Nominated MP P Dhinakaran said in response to Mr Lui’s speech, “It appears that the transport companies can continue to work on their profitability motive with a fallback that eventually the Government will step into areas where the marginal returns on investments are less than adequate to their shareholders.”
Mr Lui, however, replied that Singapore was not alone in taking this approach of having commercial entities run public transport operations. He cited Sydney which he said has “been privatising their bus industry.” And Hong Kong, which the minister said has done well, with a “reliable system and fares very much comparable to what we have here in Singapore.”
“While the suggestion to remove this profit incentive from the PTOs is indeed a tempting one,” Mr Lui told the NMP, “we also have to think whether there are possible and adverse outcomes. This is because once we tell the PTOs that any future profits they may make would be taken away, their behaviour will change and they would have less incentive to be efficient and productive. If we move to a cost-plus model, where whatever costs that are incurred, we will pay for it, together with a small margin, I think it will change their behaviours quite drastically.”
You can read the full transcript of Mr Lui’s speech and the plans in details here.
Read also: Public transport not all doom and gloom.
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