standardising the fleet to 12m buses is not an option. its a
matter of finding space to park and deploying them to the correct
service. what will happen to high-demand routes that cannot have
DDs? put more 12m buses? they can't even find enough drivers.
right now they are sticking to merc, MAN and gemilang for a
reason. merc (OC/Citaro) and MAN engine spare parts are
interchangeable and its easy and fast to get spare parts for
bodywork.
stopping the usage of bendy buses will paralyse SMRT. quite a
number of their routes need high capacity buses and DDs wont make
the cut because of height restrictions along the route. the same as
my above point, buy more 12m rigids but nobody to drive them.
stopping their shuttle bus services is as good as throwing out
busplus. what for they close down their chartering sector when they
are quite well known for their charter services, especially for big
events? they just need to improve on their services like
introducing school bus service.
no comment for depot issue though, not so familiar with that
Their main business is not charter sercvices, it is public bus
services.
If they can't even manage and provide a decent basic public bus
service in the first place, they shouldn't even be allowed to run
chartered services in the first place. Ironically, you said they
have not enough drivers, etc. Then why do they divert their
resources to other kinds of services where public bus services is
their main core and they are not even provided with satisfactory
standards instead? If they are so interested in running chartered
services or school bus service, then SMRTB should drop their public
bus business and let SBST or another operator run their bus
services instead.
What an absurd idea for SMRT to run school bus services. If so,
they might as well go private like Comfort Bus and forget about
public bus operations.
I can tell you SMRTB will not be paralysed without the use of
bendy buses. From what I see yesterday, it has always been
paralysed by the problems caused by bendy buses instead all these
years. And Singapore land use is very limited, especially when the
govt keeps on increasing the population as and when they want.
I am sorry to say that transport is only part of the challenge
of land use by the Singapore govt and there are many
infrastructures and types of land use that poses more challenges in
future for the govt. Do you think the govt will give more land
space for bendy buses when standard length fleets can do an equally
same job as well?
If SBST can achieve better service standards without the use of
bendy buses, why can't SMRTB do it? Is it because of SMRTB poor
management of bus fleets or is it the problem with bendy buses? If
you are telling me that SMRTB isn't using more standard lenght
fleets for their services nowadays, you are wrong. Some services
are already converted to almost full single decker fleets, because
they are meeting the QoS requirements. Improving more on the
frequencies requires more buses, and SMRTB is recruiting more
BCs. Moreover if they stop providing shuttle services and RWS
services, more of their BCs can be diverted to improve the
frequecies.
If areas under SBST can allow double deckers to operate, why
must SMRTB areas be at the disadvantaged (or
special) situation of not operating double deckers? Or is it
they really don't give a damn in seriously improving their bus
services? If so, then best is to give up all the bus services to
SBST and LTA to assist in improving roads like Dunearn Rd to
allow SBST to operate double deckers and take over the role
to improve the bus services in the North and Northeastern
regions as well.
Lastly my question, is allowing our BCs to have more resting
time after driving long hours, a more jam and queue free bus lanes,
interchanges and depots, and efficient and easier to manage bus
operations more important or is it fulfilling
the fantasies have having varieties of bus fleets more important?
Go figure yourself.
