Meanwhile, in London, England, there was a switch from Bendy
buses to Double-Decker buses done 2 years ago, after 3 years of
discussions.
*'Pros' in green , 'Cons' in
red.
(2008, March 3). Johnson aims to scrap bendy
buses. BBC. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/.
... Bendy buses "were never
suited to London's roads" and conductors would prevent fare
evasion, Mr Johnson said... Routemasters stopped serving normal London
routes in December 2005. Mr Johnson wants to introduce a new
version of the double-decker bus "that will once again give London
an iconic bus that Londoners can be proud
of"... Each new
Routemaster would come with a conductor, comply with EU
legislation, have disabled access and run on
environmentally-friendly fuel, he said. He would also scrap bendy buses. "The truth
is they were never suited
to London's roads and the facts show they
have twice as many accidents
as normal buses," Mr Johnson
said..."In
addition, open
boarding means they have become known as 'free buses', and the
facts show they lose almost three times as much fare revenue as
other types of bus." ..."
(2011, December 10). Bendy bus makes final journey
for Transport for London. BBC. Retrieved
from http://www.bbc.co.uk/.
The vehicles were used on 12 routes over the past decade but
Mayor Boris Johnson called them "cumbersome machines" which were too big for
narrow streets and encouraged fare-dodgers.
He has ordered nearly 500 new buses to replace them and promised
more vehicles on the routes during the rush hour. But campaigners said they were "the most
accessible bus in London" and would be missed by wheelchair
users.
The final route to be operated with bendy buses has been the 207
between Hayes and White City, and the last of the long vehicles was
to run late on Friday.
Transport for London (TfL) predicted it would increase its takings by £7.4m
because fare-evasion would now become
harder. The
"hop-on, hop-off" style of the bendy buses, with few checks on
tickets, had encouraged thousands of people to avoid
paying.
But Transport for All, which
speaks for older and disabled transport users, said TfL was "nuts"
to scrap the vehicles, especially as their new Routemaster-style replacements
had only "a tiny wheelchair
space". "On every other bus in London, wheelchair
users are frequently left stranded at the bus stop when pushchair
users refuse to fold their buggy and give up the wheelchair bay,"
said spokeswoman Lianna Etkind. "Many wheelchair users simply won't travel at
the time of the school run, because conflict with pushchair users
who won't move is so common."
The Liberal Democrats said while 120 passengers could board a bendy bus, a
double-decker could hold only 85. "As the replacement buses to the bendy buses
are often just maintaining the same frequency, the reality is
significant less capacity on numerous bus routes across London,"
said London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon.
And Labour member Val Shawcross said "a considerable amount of
TfL's time, effort and money had been spent replacing these buses,
which covered just 12 out of 700 bus routes in London".
Replacing Bendy buses with Double-deckers would save road space
and improve safety on the roads, while also help prevent fare
evasion. As Singapore is land-scarce, the priority would always be
to maximize space. Therefore, since Double-deckers occupy less road
space than Bendy buses, switching from Bendy buses to
Double-deckers is a right move by SMRT.
However, it seems that the capacity of Double-deckers is smaller
than the capacity of Bendy buses and the space for wheelchair is
smaller. With smaller capacity, it may be harder for us to board
the bus during peak hours, hence leading to longer waiting time and
subsequently longer travelling times. Of course, more DDs can be
bought to compensate the loss of capacity (2 DDs may occupy the
same space as 1 Bendy bus and have higher capacity) but this may
mean higher costs for SMRT, which ultimately leads to higher bus
fares.
Unless, 2 DDs cost cheaper than 1 Bendy bus...
Anyway, I am just sharing with you all that a similar move to
replace Bendys with DDs was done 2 years ago.
Perhaps we (SMRT) can use London’s case as reference and take
the necessary measures (eg. replace 1 Bendy with 2 DDs) to ensure
that while DDs replace Bendys, the service standard is not
compromised.
