Thanks for your comment. I see the term "extravaganza and
useless additions" may be too strong and have eclipsed the main
thrust of my post. But you are right in saying that the mobileTV
generates revenue for the bus company.
I am more concerned with the EZLink system. When it was first
implemented, SBS touted it as the state of the art technology and
is supposed to weed out cheaters which were so prevalent during the
era of TransitLink.
However, just in case people have forgotten, after spending the
millions of dollars implementing this technology, SBS is still
complaining of cheaters in the system and being drained off immense
profits yearly. They have put on bus conductors to come up once in
a while to check on passengers EZLink cards and told their drivers
to be vigilant (but hey, isnt it going back to square one and is
the same as TransitLink).
The EZLink system does not come cheap and the cost must have been
passed on to passengers. Do you all think it is a successful
system? Surely you all must have read of EZLink system overcharging
passengers (many more did not bother to check, me included, and SBS
should actually study how much more it has pocketed instead of
complaining).
As for the air-conditioning, it is good but seriously, if i have to
make a choice between air-con and non air-con, i would choose the
latter if it can reduce the entire household transportation expense
by $200-$300 (assuming non air-con is 40% cheaper). May not seem a
lot but to lower income groups, the money can come in handy.
So we have to determine what is a need and a desirable. The blind
pursuit of "world class, first class" will push the standard of
living but our salary cannot keep up with it.
There is also the VLS system which SBS use to track its buses but
has it improved the efficiency, waiting times, buses bunching
together? Traffic jams, not SBS fault, but if it is not effective,
why implement it?
All these things cost money and failed exercises will simply mean
passengers pick up the bills as they have to recoup losses and make
profits. Hence the term "extravaganza and useless
additions".
