Singapore
A cosy ride for varsity commuters
Eisen Teo
590 words
17 February 2010
Straits Times
English
(c) 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
They can sleep through ride from the east to campuses in the
west, and save time too.
ABOARD A Cosy Express, commuters get a
whole extra hour of shuteye before school.
Having suffered long rides to their universities for the past
three years, three young women launched their own bus service,
dubbed Ace, which allows university students to avoid bus-to-train
transits, and save up to 30 minutes in travel time.
Its buses serve 75 subscribers, called Acers, picking them up in
the east – namely, Pasir Ris, Tampines and Bedok – and dropping
them off at campuses in the west.
Acers who might have previously needed two hours to get to
school, can now get there in an hour to 90 minutes if traffic is
smooth.
Fares cost $3.70 per ride to the National University of
Singapore (NUS) in Kent Ridge and $3.80 to Nanyang Technological
University (NTU) in Jurong.
Commuters must sign up for at least one ride a week for the
entire semester, and keep to a strict schedule of pick-up times,
although Ace has also issued one-time tickets of $5 since last week
to raise profits.
The first three bus runs – two to NTU and
one to NUS – started two weeks ago, with the
earliest just before 7am.
Every Monday to Friday until the end of the school semesters in
April, these buses pull in at bus stops outside Pasir Ris, Tampines
and Bedok MRT stations for boarding.
They reach NTU at 8.30am and 9.30am, and
NUS at 10am – barring traffic snarls.
The fares are daunting for some, like Mr Daniel Chan, 21, who
lives in Upper Paya Lebar. ’$3.70 is kind of expensive for me, and
I’m fine reading my lecture notes on the bus,’ said the first-year
NUS arts student, who spends about $2 and 90
minutes to get to school via two buses.
Others, latecomers who are not used to Ace’s strict pick-up
timings, have been left behind.
But the rest are grateful.
Instead of having to stand for an hour on the MRT train and transfer from bus to train and back again,
Tampines resident Ng Jin Bao, 25, a second-year engineering student
at NTU, saves about 30 minutes.
He said: ‘Now I can sit down in comfort.’
In fact, aboard an NTU-bound bus two weeks
ago, most of the 15 passengers, including Mr Ng, had fallen asleep
by the time the bus hit the expressway.
Two of Ace’s three 22-year-old founders – Miss Ashli Koe, who is
a final-year business student at NUS, and
Miss Joycelyn Ho, currently unemployed – had commuting woes too.
Getting to and from school took Miss Koe, who lives in Serangoon
North, up to two hours.
Seven months ago, with mutual friend Miss Ho Khim Rong, an
educational trainer, the two ploughed $5,000 of their money into
the start-up.
Through fliers, viral e-mails and a website (www.acosyexpress.com.sg),
they received about 650 responses, and from there chose to launch
routes that served the most people.
They hired 20- to 40-seater buses from three private operators,
which could set them back by up to $100 per bus a day.
Despite monthly running costs of up to $4,200, Ace hopes to
break even by May, so more routes can be launched, including an
evening route from campuses in the west towards the east.
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