74 was once full DD fleet. SDs were not enough.
151 was once full SD fleet. SDs were good enough.
And when they made the changes, in 151's case, it made little
impact except giving the chance to put my bag on the adjacent sit
and sleeping with the knowledge that its unlikely that people would
want to sit next to me plenty of times.
In 74's case, towards AMK from Hougang, the SD doesnt even
need to reach Serangoon North to quit picking up pax, and as for
Bukit Timah folks....., you had better prayed it was a DD that
arrives at most 15min after the previous bus because it would be
impossible to board even the DD otherwise.
Nope. I still stand by my stand that 151 and 163 are examples of
services that do not need DDs...while services like 74 languish.
And 74 needs newer DDs....74 has been bypassed for fleet upgrade
very often, which is curious since 74 ihas been really bringing in
loads of dough for SBS for a very long time. Only recently did the
VO2X go....only to be replaced by SDs. The VO3X...especially the
batch 1's tend to stink and climbing the slopes at full load sounds
extremely strenous to the ears. Small wonder 74's VO3X fleet has a
relatively higher incidence of breakdowns.
actually for sv151, the DD's are always on the wrong side
nowadays i feel. maybe it's the schedule. there is a critical
half-hour period where people cannot board as early as YIH, RH and
NUS High. it should still be there, just that the rest of the
journey is coping fine. packed but people can still have space to
board.
sv74 is an example of a service that is frequent enough during
peak-within-peak hour that single deck buses can cope, if not
another bus will be arriving within minutes. VO2x were replaced by
single deck buses because a capacity of 100 on VO2x matches more
closely to the capacity of 84 on the single deck. a fleet reduction
might ensue if it were replaced by VO3x.
as for the AMK to s'goon north sector, you might wish to write
in. i saw sv74 buses doing downroute from AMK MRT just for this
issue.
in the future, we can expect to see more services getting SD
conversion to DD on weekdays, and fleet upgrade will eventually
come to sv74, maybe sooner than you will expect (:
