Trivia on Yishun Interchange
& Services
Question 1: Name any TIBS/SMRT Service
under Yishun Route Group that did jump-bus in the
past.
Answer 1: 811. When SMRT took
over operations from TIBS it ended the jump-bus system for 811, and
used the one-driver one-bus system instead.
Question 2: In which year did AMDEP
take away 1 A/P shift from 812?
Answer 2: 2001. Before
2001, 812 had 7 perm buses, 5 rigid shifts and 2 bendy shifts. When
bendies started coming in, AMDEP made the decision to convert all
rigid shifts to bendy shifts. Doing so however, they also took away
the 7th A/P shift. From then on it has always been 6
bendy perms.
Question 3: Which berth did 811E occupy
before being shifted to the Passenger Service Centre? Why
so?
Answer 3: Berths
A2, A3.
Reason 1)
811’s eastern loop required bendies to be operated on it as it had
an extremely huge load during the morning and evening peaks.
However since 811’s southern loop was at the end-on berths, the
plan could not be carried out. Thus they had to shift it to a
sawtooth berth instead so that they could place bendy perms in
811.
Reason 2)
811’s buses comes in very frequently. As such when they were
reversing out of the end-on berths it created a bottleneck in the
end-on bus parks. Buses turning into the parks would often face
jams. They did not want the jams to occur too frequently as it
delayed traffic outside the interchange.
Reason 3)
When they decided to shift to a sawtooth berth, they did not pick
any of the extra sawtooth berths in the Interchange. Instead, the
management decided to create an extra berth off the Passenger
Service Centre. (To XiaoTaro: This special berth had never existed
when Yishun INT first started. In fact this berth was built
specially just to house 811’s southern loop buses.) Reason was
because they could save more fuel by just allowing the buses to
make 1 turn around the rigid bus park instead of following the
other buses by turning out into Central 1, Central, Ave 2 and then
continue on.
Question
4: Which berth
did Express 520 occupy in the past?
Answer
4: Berth B6.
Used the yellow plates in the berth.
Question
5: Why was
Feeder 800's boarding berth shifted to 856/859's berth, when
it originally was together with 804/806?
Answer 5: In the past
when 800 shared the same berth B9 as 804 and 806, it so happened
that timesheets in the past indicated that 800 buses leave the last
if 1 bus from each feeder came by. 804 is the service with the
largest passenger load especially during the evenings. When 804
buses came to the berth it usually took up to 3 minutes to clear
the passenger load. Then there was 806, taking about 1-2 minutes.
All these unnecessary waiting time for the 2 feeders to clear their
loads caused 800 to lose a lot of precious time on their
timesheets, creating longer waiting times along the routes and
frequent bus bunching. Thus, they decided to shift 800 to Berth B8,
where 856 and 859 are. It has since lowered the frequency of
bunching as well as the chances of irregular waiting time for
800.
Question 6: Which service used the
39/85's berth in the past?
Answer 6: Service 854.
Used berths A17, A18, A19, A20. It is now situated at Berth B7 so
that bendies can be plied on this service.
Question 7: State one reason why 855's buses
do not like to park at the end-on berths allocated to
them.
Answer 7: The
distance from the end-on berths to the Timekeeper’s office is too
far and it often eats into SL’s break time. SLs usually drop their
passengers off at any of the 4 non-functional end-on berths, A1,
A2, A3 or A4 and they walk a shorter distance to the Timekeeper’s
office. Service 853 SLs also like to do that.
Question 8: What was so special about
Express 520 when it still existed, compared to other trunks
that also headed towards town, like 851-855? Give your answer in
terms of the route it takes.
Answer 8: Yishun
trunks used the Ave 2 straight into Lentor Ave. However, Express
520 made a loop around Chong Pang area/N7 area, via Yishun Central,
Yishun Ring Road, and turns right into Ave 2, before continuing
with the journey into Lentor Ave and onto SLE/CTE. PM peak journey
uses the same way back into Yishun INT.
