Fares and "Huge deficit" under GCM "clearly not sustainable"

SBS3004X SG

Or introduce dynamic fares. Then those cannot afford one, take during after hours lor…

LTA should have kept the fares the same instead of decreasing and getting into this mess. If fares are kept the same now, then no need massive fare increase in future.

SMB145B SG

This Minister if open mouth only talk about $ $ $ nothing else..

Actually got many more of these. This khaw bu one really jialat.

SMB145B SG

This is one change I am fully expecting. Peak and non-peak travel mode is already programmed into the card readers. It's already done by TT Sydney.

If this ever comes into reality, maybe $13 bus fare during peak? Expensive bus rides, long waiting time, bus going MIA? Why are drivers leaving their 120k cars for below par transport?

iveco SG

Actually got many more of these. This khaw bu one really jialat.

Our transport ministers all CMI lah. First, Mah Bow Tan single-handedly destroyed Tibs Holdings in 1999 with the NEL Tender going to Delgro (SBS). Then Yeo Cheow Tong failed to improve the bus service network in his own ward. Rot in our train system set in during the later years of Raymond Lim's tenure, reaching its peak in 2015 when Lui Tuck Yew was helming the Transport portfolio.

If our cabinet ministers took one zero off their annual salary we could be seeing better and more affordable bus services. Maybe even $8 heart bypass surgeries for all.

But 70% voted to retain this lot in power, as Gekpohboy says. Hope that figure drops to 45% in 2020.

iveco SG

More buses, higher fares.

Whatever happened to cheaper, better and faster?

gekpohboy SG

I'll be frank. I'm still waiting for an opposition party to raise the issue about transport costs and transport fares. (Instead of that stupid doll at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station)

I'm still waiting for an opposition party to bring up the matter that a recent ban on smoking at public places has brought smoking to the households, and affected our health. (Instead of just concerning that the law system may not be pure)

I'm still waiting for an opposition party to raise awareness of the "skills future" courses, about how redundant the courses actually are (eg. courses on how to arrange flowers, how to clean the house, etcetera.)

Sadly, until now, only the PAP is able to govern Singapore.

Other parties are catching up, but it will take some time.

gekpohboy SG

and, I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to raise the fact that our Chinese drama cannot make it! The 「吃飽沒」is a joke! No where near the standard of Taiwan drama (Hokkien) or Hong Kong drama (Cantonese).

nonetheless, I must say that our Chinese variety show is on par with the Taiwan variety shows.

I don't know about the movie, but I don't think ours is comparable to the Hong Kong movies.

only the variety shows got standard...

gekpohboy SG

Anyway, my point is, let’s hope that the opposition raise whatever we discussed here to the parliament.

carbikebus SG

If our cabinet ministers took one zero off their annual salary we could be seeing better and more affordable bus services. Maybe even $8 heart bypass surgeries for all.

But 70% voted to retain this lot in power, as Gekpohboy says. Hope that figure drops to 45% in 2020.

In 2020 we local born are considered minor

SMB128B SG

If our cabinet ministers took one zero off their annual salary we could be seeing better and more affordable bus services. Maybe even $8 heart bypass surgeries for all.

But 70% voted to retain this lot in power, as Gekpohboy says. Hope that figure drops to 45% in 2020.

Reason for this is the flaw in the ministers' pay structure in Singapore..

When you pay your workers a high basic salary it becomes a system that punishes for mistakes rather than encourage for improvement. This means that ministers are just going to become comfortable in their positions and do no more than whatever they are assigned I.e. Lim kopi and sign documents..

Conversely if a low starting pay is introduced, but with many bonuses and raises in store for good progress, it creates the drive for ministers to really do more and take the risks, since a reward is now up for grabs..

Why would they even bother if the "reward" is alr paid to them as part of their starting salary?

sgbuses SG

Whatever happened to cheaper, better and faster?

Salaries in the industry practically doubled under GCM. The Transperth model is supposed to lower wages, but the opposite happened because the industry's wages were suppressed for decades before GCM.

BusAnalayzer SG

Let's not digress from the main issues here.

I have been screaming about this for some time to say it is not a sustainable model, but many people "object" saying we should not consider loading, we should not consider economics.

There is never a free flowing tap and it will come back to bite at some point.

(1) The introduction of too many useless redundant services while not keeping up to adjust/make changes to existing old loss making routes is one of the issues.

(2) Allowing buses to run at 5-10 pax off-peak and 20-25 pax during peak hours for long sectors of a route when other alternatives are available is an issue

(3) Deploying high capacity buses on services that have strictly SD loading and find it difficult to load SDs is a major resource allocation mishandle

(4) Adding buses at random to feeder services, when upgrading capacity would have done the job has resulted in wastage of $$$ (# buses, maintenance, BC salaries, interchange space, road traffic and tolls, fuel... )

Hopefully LTA pulls up its socks and behaves more responsible than doing stupid routes and introducing them with HC before its time.

carbikebus SG

Some service they introduce just for the sake of introducing new svc..Its a joke that 83/85 get full DDs considering how much fuel these HC buses required.119 also another joke,Run empty with 2 DD..Svc 3 with 4-5 DD is understood consider the high frequencies..46 redundant with too many DD.

dupdup77 SG

Let's not digress from the main issues here.

I have been screaming about this for some time to say it is not a sustainable model, but many people "object" saying we should not consider loading, we should not consider economics.

There is never a free flowing tap and it will come back to bite at some point.

(1) The introduction of too many useless redundant services while not keeping up to adjust/make changes to existing old loss making routes is one of the issues.

(2) Allowing buses to run at 5-10 pax off-peak and 20-25 pax during peak hours for long sectors of a route when other alternatives are available is an issue

(3) Deploying high capacity buses on services that have strictly SD loading and find it difficult to load SDs is a major resource allocation mishandle

Hopefully LTA pulls up its socks and behaves more responsible than doing stupid routes and introducing them with HC before its time.

Hi mr busanalyser, the point I am trying to bring across all the while is that when planning a bus route, the importance of providing a service to a part of a road is more important than the loading of a service. This is essentially what the authorities have always emphasized on previously. To put it simply, 'loading' is the last concern for a bus service implementation.

What was actually noted at that time was lousy policy implementation which makes BSEP suddenly a scheme to placate the voters after GE2011 due to insufficient housing and insufficient public transport. With or without BSEP, transport fares will increase. It was merely used as an important tool for all to see the effects. Now it becomes a very good excuse to increase fares after people witness new services coming in. So when loading for a bus service has more or less people, it does not matter. They will still increase fares as a whole to support this BSEP scheme.

Even if your (2) and (3) and (4) are made right in your context, fares will still increase. This gonna shows loading and right capacity plays no part in bus fare increases. This only shows they still have to improve their functions and deployments abilities. Let's all don't be too naive to think that they will not increase fares if they can settle (2), (3), (4). Once BSEP and GCM scheme is kicked off, the scheme alone costs money. They are very clever in letting you feel the good effects first before charging you extra. Cheers. Thanks.

BusAnalayzer SG

Even if your (2) and (3) and (4) are made right in your context, fares will still increase. This gonna shows loading and right capacity plays no part in bus fare increases. Once BSEP and GCM scheme is kicked off, the scheme alone costs money. They are very clever in letting you feel the good effects first before charging you extra. Cheers. Thanks.

I partially agree. You need new services to connect newer areas/developments where there is no bus service and you need to provide one irrespective of loading.

117 is a good route, but didn't justify DDs from the beginning. 46 route could have been planned better and def. didn't need DDs. These are total waste of resources. Likewise the DDs on 83/85/119.

Introduction of poorly planned routes and random addition of buses just to make people feel good?

Still keep loss making routes running with very low pax because you don't want to take the right steps?

All this costs money and if the fares would increase by 5 cents, now they will increase by 50 cents. It will impact somewhere. Let's not be bullish that this will not lead to higher fare increase and more inconvenience to the poor.

Unless the government will continue to fund the deficit and this in turn is whose money? Is it well spent?

TIB868X SG

Loading is definitely a consideration. Bus routes with consistent poor loading don't give the government revenue to break-even and it is their responsibility to see what can be done about it. Merely improving functions and deployments (such as DD > SD downgrades) are not enough to lower costs to such an extent that the government no longer needs to raise fares. As mentioned earlier, the bus network is a patchwork of routes. In the long term, nation-wide bus rationalization exercise is needed. Even that may not eliminate the need to raise fares, although it will likely increase route and network efficiency if done right. Routes planned by LTA are different to the types of routes SBS, TIBS and SMRT planned back then due to different ideologies.

With GCM, it is inevitable that fares would be raised, with the financial picture much clearer. Those who are poor or in poverty would likely receive more transport subsidies but the rest of commuters who can afford it will have to pay their share.

When they say the system is not financially sustainable, they are not saying it for fun or to collect more money from us (even though they say there is nothing wrong with collecting more money). GCM is a much better model than the previous model, but without increased fares and other improvements, the threat of financial ruin is no longer mere scaremongering.

dupdup77 SG

Hi mr TIB868X, I did not say loading is not a consideration. I say loading is the least consideration when priorities are compared. I understand your logical explanations.

The NEL rationalisation is brutal. There is no circle line rationalisation because the line is more of a huge looping direction without a very clear impact to the current services at that time. At that time, not much introduction of services too.

For DTL2, only see some minor amendment.

Certainly the loading of bus services will drop even more especially when time goes by. By yr 2030, when all mrt lines planned for are up, expect more trunk bus services to have even lesser people. For long distance traveling, they will tell you to have MRT as part of your route planning.

Up to now, they have not even done any withdrawal of services (as of recent years). We shall see if they will do so for the rationalisation of services which duplicate MRT in the launch of reopening of Bukit panjang interchange and the connected services in the months to come. Or else we better don't keep hampering too much on the topic of rationalisation if it is merely just talk in forums and the authorities don't really carry out rationalisation. Cheers. Thanks.

gekpohboy SG

Remember, BSEP was launched partly to provide un-profitable links that would otherwise not be provided by SBS or SMRT.

BSEP is meant to last for ten years, starting 2012 (if I'm not wrong). I believe everything has been paid for already. If a route is really un-profitable, remove the route once the ten years period is over.

gekpohboy SG

I won't be surprised that five years later (2022), many BSEP new routes will be withdrawn. Those that remain would probably merge with surrounding non-BSEP routes.

dupdup77 SG

Remember, BSEP was launched partly to provide un-profitable links that would otherwise not be provided by SBS or SMRT.

Hi mr gekpohboy, need to balance out priorities at times. If a route is really unprofitable but is the only bus service to a certain area, we should not take out.

In a GCM contract awarded, there will definitely be some heavily utilized routes and some money losing routes. One will have to cover for the other. We cannot just take out routes which do not make money and eat into the bus companies margin of profit since they have already taken a fixed sum of money from the govt. Thanks.

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