SINGAPORE - Bus firms SBS Transit and SMRT have earned
a combined $3.4 million in incentives under a trial
"carrot-and-stick" scheme to get operators to improve service
reliability and reduce bus bunching.
The monetary awards were given for bettering the
regularity of 45 bus services, said Transport Minister Khaw Boon
Wan on Tuesday (Feb 28), in a written reply to a question filed by
by MP Liang Eng Hwa in Parliament, regarding bus reliability.
SBS Transit earned $2,040,000 for improvements to 25
service, while SMRT Buses earned $1,403,300 for improvements to 20
services.
Mr Khaw said there was a 20 per cent reduction in
average additional wait times for these bus services, over the
nine-month evaluation period from December 2015 to August 2016.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) also said on its
website: "Commuters benefited as wait times were more regular, bus
loads were spread out more evenly and bus services were more
punctual."
This is the final assessment period of the Bus Service
Reliability Framework (BSRF) pilot, which started in February
2014.
Under BSRF, operators are given monetary incentives for
reducing commuters' excess waiting time - the difference between
actual and scheduled waiting times - or handed penalties if this
waiting time increases.
The framework also uses an "On Time Adherence"
standard, which measures the proportion of times that the bus
service arrives less than two minutes earlier or five minutes later
than its scheduled timing.
BSRF is now incorporated into the bus contracting
model, which the bus industry made a full transition to in
September last year (2016).
Mr Khaw said that the baseline standards under the BSRF
have been tightened, following the trial.
From September, BSRF has been implemented for 108
services, and a 15 per cent reduction in average additional wait
times has been observed, he added.
ST