After seeing so many suggestions of new bus services or the
amendment of existing bus services in the Route Suggestions, which
is currently in its sixth series, as well as many other suggestions
distributed across other threads in this forums, it shows that
members of the public, in particular regular bus commuters, may
have the potential in coming up with new/improved bus services to
provide better and faster connectivity between particular
areas. Therefore, I've
decided to conduct a poll in this thread to find out whether it is
beneficial to members of the public to be more involved in the
planning of bus routes.
The process of the public's involvement in bus route planning
may start with the provision of suggestions of either new bus
services or amending existing bus services. The suggestions are
then thoroughly reviewed by the LTA based on a set of established
criteria. If the suggestions are feasible, the LTA will then decide
whether the new/amended service(s) should be implemented based on
one suggestion from an individual or an integration of suggestions
from several people. These approaches of involving the public in
the planning of bus routes can be packaged into the form of a
contest on a quarterly basis, where rewards can be given to members
of the public whose route suggestions are officially implemented
partially/fully as a new service.
While this concept is currently being tested briefly with the
introduction of Beeline in April 2015, this concept can be further
expanded into public bus services, where commuters are able to
better provide feedback on the type of public bus services they
want through their suggestions. Through this process of collecting
route suggestions from the public, the LTA will have an opportunity
to learn about the bus service connections that commuters truly
want and improve their internal processes of bus route planning,
thus improving the type of bus services introduced/amended over
time. It is noted that while this process of collecting route
suggestions from the public proceed, the LTA should continue with
their planning of bus services based on their own statistics as
part of the BSEP.
Here is a summary of some advantages and disadvantages of
allowing the public to be involved in bus route planning, as well
as the criteria that the LTA can use to review the route
suggestions from the public:
Advantages of
Public Involvement in Bus Route Planning
- Allows the public to voice out their opinions on the existing
route structures of bus services
- Allows the public to provide feedback on the lack of bus
connections in certain parts of Singapore
- Improvement in the quality of bus services introduced over time
with greater on-the-ground exposure based on suggestions from the
public
Disadvantages
of Public Involvement in Bus Route Planning
- Inability to meet all the suggestions from members of the public
due to limited resources (i.e. bus fleet, parking spaces for
buses)
- Not all route suggestions from members of the public may be
logical due to their lack of knowledge in bus route planning
Possible
Factors in Reviewing Route Suggestions from the
Public