sadly to speak, it does not apply to every new town. I think it has
to do w/ every new town residents travelling pattern.
Some new town's pm peak demand cool down after
8pm.
In any case, if anyone noticed the 1hr 10 mins freq belt oftenly
results in longer waiting time after it lapses.
There seems to be a pattern in the heartlands that are far from the
city centre. the 8pm+ trips in these towns can also be packed with
people. This actually goes in line with where most people who
travel by public transport work.
Say the big 3 in the east. Demand actually starts to drop after
8.30 or 9pm. the farther from city centre, the later it drops.
Coupled with split shift keeping and meal breaks ending the
frequency will drag a little after the core pm peak period.
Conversely, it also means the pre-am peak load is likely to be
heavy especially if pax are travelling a great distance to their
workplace. That is why the Boon Lay feeder loads drop after 7.45am.
This allows 242 and 243 buses to cross to 179/199 respectively for
the student loads.
Towns near the city centre like Clementi, Bt Merah, Toa Payoh
and Serangoon are pretty tricky. By theory the loads should drop
after 8pm but due to residents taking advantage of their
geographical residential convenience, they may go home later from
the city centre than people who stay farther away. In the end,
demand may only drop at the same time as the towns farther away
from city centre.
I agree that frequency tends to get screwed after the QoS 10min
freq especially for PM peak (AM peak not so jia lat). The
problem lies here is the pm shift mealbreaks cannot be too early
(cos they start like 1.5-2hours then meal break), and neither
it can be too late (split shift keep liao means with mealbreak =
longer headway). Either way still screwed that's why they stick to
the current way.
Extending the QoS 10min freq period isnt financially viable
either, depending on service. Maybe they can consider 12min for the
30-45min period after the 10min pm peak-within-peak period.
Services from the city centre may sound good as compared to
services serving the heartlands. The impact on the points i raised
in the earlier para wont be so much, and yet still able to satisfy
a group of commuters who happen to take during this period. But of
course having 12min post peak-within-peak period may also lead to
even longer headways after that period. Its hard to balance.