I feel that the LTA has a guiding principle when planning bus
routes, which is that the bus service must take the fastest route
to connect all the places it is created to serve.
The other principle is that, as much as possible, there must not
be loss of bus connection in existing bus services. In fact, as
much as possible, do not mess with the route of existing bus
services. If there is loss, a new bus service must compensate back
the loss. The case of Bus Services 300, 301 and 983 is a good
example.
If we also apply the same principles, especially the first one
on fastest possible route, we can roughly know how the route would
be. My guess on bus services 382G/W was really close (it is damn
obvious anyway). Maybe they decide to let it ply Sentul Crescent
because that way is faster?
I used to think that the LTA has restrictions in route length,
that the route must not exceed a certain length for it to be in a
category (e.g. trunk). After I found out about the length of bus
service 47 and the extended bus service 49, I have a feeling that
there may after all be no restriction in route length. Maybe the
restriction is on the travel time instead.
Nonetheless, I think feeder routes have restrictions in length.
I guess only feeder route have such restrictions.
There are a lot of cases of violation of your principles:
- 382G/W using Punggol Field even though Punggol Ctrl would be
faster
- 20 winding around Tampines and Simei (if it was only to
connect Simei - CBP, the route should have been Tampines Ave 5 -
Simei St 3 - Simei Rd)
- 120's and 121's winding route between NBR and Tiong Bahru
(although better than 122's duplicative route)
- 141's Toa Payoh Rise sector
- 904's winding route beyond Admiralty
- 990's weird detour around IMM
- 189's lost link between Bukit Batok and West Coast
- 117's Yishun Ave 1 which is neither the shortest nor the
fastest route
- 983's CCK Grove sector (future)
