Thats right. 47 is not exclusive but rather an alternative. It
is a good route undeniably but does not justify the use of DDs.
Bro - 47 is doing quite okay with DDs. You should see the
loading during AM towards CBP and PM from CBP. The buses can easily
get 80-100 pax, and many times the SD will be in "red". Of course
Marine Parade area is too spoilt with too many services and they
need to do some rationalization there.
16, 31, 196, 197 all doing MP - Bedok
12, 38, 47 - too many services for Bedok South to Tanah
Merah.
But if you just see the load between CBP onwards there is high
demand.
The service which has DDs and totally does not need it
is sv 46.
They can wait until DTL3 to open, witness the loading and then
deploy. Talking about excess and waste of resources, I want to
highlight that the biggest waste is on feeder/intra-town services
where SDs are spammed as if they cost nothing. Whether you take
911, 912, 913 or 222, 291, 293 same story. This is the biggest
wastage. And this is LTA decision.