I believe the 40 A24s are just the first step in
SMRT’s fleet renewal. When SMRT announced
its fleet renewal earlier this year, it mentioned that the addition
of 201ADLs, 40 A24s and 332 A22s are part of its fleet renewal plan
till 2016. Given that most of SBST feeder services are
already WAB as opposed to SMRT where only
a minority are, I believe SMRT was facing the pressure
to make their feeders WAB as well. At the current
situation, if SMRT opts to make their fleet
WAB, they will need to trade off the use of the high
capacity buses (or use ADLS, but as their chairman has
said, DDs are only for middle to long haul trunk services, which
IMO is a very good choice). In order to make some of
their feeders WAB, SMRT decided not to extend the MK1s
for a further 2 years and replace them with the A24s instead. With
the use of these 40 A24s, A22s and the older Mk2, Habit and Volgren
bendies to boost the % of high capacity buses, I believe quite a
number of feeders can go WAB in 2015.
The MK2s, Habits and volgrens are not due for deregistration
till 2017 and seeing SMRT’s pattern, I really dont
think these buses will face early retirement (except for those
slated to retire after 2020 because if I remember correctly
LTA wants 100% WAB by then). All of the
SMRT bendies are Mercs except SMB388S. As
seen in the case of SMRT rigid buses,
SMRT chose to retire the scanias without extension and
give early retirement to the lances and hinos whereas the
O405 NACs and CACs which were considerably older
received a 2-2.5years extension. Moreover the MK2s, habits and
volgrens are still in very good working condition and retiring them
will be a real waste and not make economic sense when the last
thing singaporeans want is a bus fare hike.
As for the new integrated hubs, while some of them might not be
bendy-friendly, the rest are, since the current fleet of
SMRT buses can still maneuver through them. Given that
most long haul trunk services will be using DDs in the future, I
don’t forsee a situation where the number of bendies on singapore
roads will increase. Bendies could just operate from the
interchanges that are bendy-friendly and serve as loop services
(since routes are short) or even operate from roadside terminals.
Also, with LTA building so many new depots in
HDB towns, operations for feeder services could be
shifted to operate directly from the depots and pass by the
Interchange/MRT/Town Centre (AMK will be a good example, as in the
case of Svc 265, 26
. Bendy buses can definitely park at these depots and if
land space really is the problem for parking, multi-storey depots
is the solution. Shifting feeder services to depots is definitely a
good idea regardless of whether bendies or DDs or SDs are used
because these services are the most frequent and have the greatest
number of buses laying over at the interchange in between trips. If
they dont operate from the interchange, problems such as long
queues to turn into the interchange and congestion in the
interchange can be minimised.
Moreover, at the rate at which new services are introduced and
the projected number of new services to be introduced in future,
the current interchanges can’t sustain no matter which buses are
used. LTA will have to find the solution to that,
which could indicate cropping up of roadside terminals or
operations from interchange.
With the introduction of the bus contracting model, I believe we
could see feeder services and short haul routes currently under
SBST receiving bendies in future. Given
SMRT is buying these 40 A24s and LTA is
going to own these buses in due course, it might be in LTAs plan to
get more bendies in future when they take over the bus assets.
LTA will not increase the number of bendies past the
current numbers and I am sure they are against bendy operations on
long trunks but they never denounced its uses on Feeders and short
hauls. They probably dont want to get it now because the current
operator SBST might not want to operate these buses.
But after 2016, SBST has no choice but to operate the
buses allocated by LTA if they are to remain in the
market. The capabilities, advantages and disadvantages of the
different types of buses must be taken into account and
transforming Singapore’s transport system into a 1st world system
really depends on deploying the right types of buses at the right
places (Bendies for Feeders, short hauls and DDs for Trunks,
Express and Long Hauls). A 1-size-fits-it-all approach
cannot solve singapore’s problems because different buses have
different needs and loading patterns.
We will know by 2016 if this is put into action.
The simplest solution is for the fleet transfer to take place
during the conversion to contracting. Areas currently served by
articulated buses can give away most of their articulated buses in
return for double-deck buses.
Many of the foreign operators have extensive experience in
operating articulated buses, and would have factored this into
their proposals. As for the WAB-quota issue, I expect the older
articulated buses to be operated only during peak hours, as per the
current practice in Perth.
I agree that most of the legacy fleet (i.e. non-WAB) will be
cleaned up by 2020. London has managed to pull that off, Singapore
will do this better.