In a nutshell, LTA has screwed the entire bus fleet for GCM
operators..
They should have purchase new A22, A95, (E500 if applicable), B9TL
& O530 buses for those respective companies instead of handing
some units over from SMRT & SBST.. Those (SMRT & SBST)
buses can be deployed to other services to meet / improve WAB quota
or improve the bus services frequency..
Even the registration of buses under SG plate is really really
messy..
At that point in time (2009
to 2012), it was very clear to LTA that the bus network was not
coping well with the old licensing regime where bus companies were
losing money (ie bus side of SBS and SMRT), and that disatisfaction
with bus services were increasing. Something had to be done fast to
solve it, and while the contracting model looked attractive then,
LTA needed the time to study and understand the new model. So the
immediate action then was to launch BSEP where buses were bought by
SBS and SMRT, which both had experience in buying buses. This has
now changed with a department in LTA in charge of allocating the
assets to different companies.
If LTA had bought more buses now, there would be a lot of
wastage, you will have excess buses running around, running in an
uneconomical way. Yes, the companies are no longer affected by
revenue risk under the contracting model, which means LTA can
provide a level of service higher than that in the old regime,
however, it is still subjected to LTA's budget, which is basically
influenced by the government's fiscal policy, which means excess
resources that are not justified will still not be ideal under
LTA.