Yes, unfortunately, Boon Lay interchange cannot accomodate so
many bendys at the current design. It can only do so if a full
bendy fleet utilises 2/3 the number of buses as a full DD fleet (do
the math on the length and it will work out to that). I wasnt
saying 179 should convert to Bendys, I am just saying 179 would
have been better with bendys. The amount of time a DD 179 clogs up
at pioneer MRT and also Boon Lay alighting point is also very
long.
If there were bendys on 179, I doubt there will be as much
bunching as of the current state with DDs. The DDs makes the
passenger activities very irregular such that the buses bunch up so
easily. And like I mentioned, SBST purposely sends 2 179s together
to counter the boarding/alighting disadvantage that DDs have due to
the 1 lesser door - this wont happen with bendys. Also, with dwell
times reduced at the major busstops, the number of buses in the 179
fleet can be reduced slightly. But yes a 3-door double deck is a
viable option to the bendy in this case because it eases the
passenger activity and since passengers are mostly students, they
can go up too. Best option, build MRT into NTU and 179 can operate
with just SDs.
And yes SMB351M is right. DDs only take into account the
absolute land space but LTA is obviously over-looking the fact of
how many more DDs are being used on services with short distances
and high passenger activities to compensate the efficiency of
bendys. So will the overall picture really save the landspace
occupied? You talk about express service (eg. 966) where there is
more driving than time spent dwelling at busstops, DDs and Bendys
have similar efficiencies, so of course DD is the obvious choice to
save space. Also there arent any town services that need bendys
because there arent any feeders or institutional services there so
if planned properly, bendys wont be clogging the busy roads in
town.
Yeah if Singapore bus network become like HK one, I will not
even talk about bendy bus. But face reality, that's still far and I
dont see feeder services disappearing in the next 20 years. I only
see more old people needing to use feeders over the next 20
years.