won't there be confusion at times? y didnt they renumber them
into different numbers in the first place?
Oh.. that's a good question.
Let me analyse you about the situations about the Reorganisation of
Bus Services in 1971 and the 11 bus services that were clustered
before the pre-reorganisation. In the pre-Reorganisation days, STC
and the 11 chinese bus companies came out with their own numbering
systems and if a service that plies in an Alternate direction or
its terminating point, it has to be prefixed with 'A', 'B' or so
on, so that passengers would not take the wrong bus. One of the
major problem faced is that there are many detours, irregular
frequency and routing systems, generating unwanted competitions,
poor description of its route details, which lead to inconveniences
like long delay or a sudden suspension of bus services. There
wasn't a proper bus terminal shelter at that time even its
re-organisation and only very few amendments/withdrawl/introduction
of bus services were made during the pre-Reorganisation. Another
problem faced with the 11 Chinese bus companies is that they cannot
ply on city or municipal routes becuase STC entirely monopolized
the city and municipal areas and the bus stops and terminus are
exclusively used by STC and not other companies. The 11 Chinese bus
companies had to struggle with the problem and routes in the rural
districts were introduced and it must not be plying around the city
and municipal areas.
The possible confusion is one good example - STC Bus 18A, which has
2 routes, Normal and Limited Stop. You would have known that most
of the passengers at that time do not possess a bus guide to travel
around and no one even knows the timing of STC Bus 18A that
operates full route with bus stops and limited stops. STC Bus 18A
was known to have 3 different route systems during its peak hours,
one bus will terminate at Seragoon Garden Way, another two plies on
Northern & Southern Loops each. After 7.30pm, buses will
operate alternatively from Brah Basah Rd and Finlayson Rd and after
8.30pm from Bras Basah Rd only.
During the 1971 Bus Re-organisation, its existing bus routes from
11 bus companies including STC were revamped into new and
re-organised routes introduced and the number of bus companies
after the re-organisation was 4. The prupose of the re-organisation
is to minimise wastage duplication of services and provide an
efficient travelling on buses. There was an introduction of Fare
Structures, depending on which fare stages a passenger travelled,
ranging from 10 c to 50c and with introduction of Student
Concession, they can travel for only 10c at no extra charge until
8pm.
Although after the Re-organisaion of the Bus Companies, the
situation did not improve, some passengers do not really know which
buses to take (partly because they known of the older routes and
unable to get familiarised with the major changes - you would
notice still not many passengers can afford to have the Bus Guide
with them) and possibly a crew fatigue due to long and irregular
bus routes (like 42 and 45), longer waiting time and also off-peak
wastage (the bus plies to a bus stop that not many have
frequented). This continues for 2 years before the 3 remaining bus
companies were formed into SBS in 1973. STC on the other hand, shut
down its operations due to serious financial problems and its
existing services / bus fleet were forced to be handed over to ABC,
ABS & UBC.
The first rationalisation took place in 1974, which would solve
majority of its problem, it was a humble start to make travelling
on buses an easier part of their life without having to walk to a
bus stop and make different transfers. Several duplicated routes
were withdrawn, services were renumbered to avoid confusion and
route changes to serve the passengers better. SBS then took another
step in the 1978 Jurong Bus Rationalisation, becuase of the Jurong
Bus Interchange being constructed and housed all its boarding and
alighting points for Jurong Town & Industrial Bus services,
rather than a clustered terminus in Jurong Town & Industrial
Estates.