i feel that the govt's decision to open up the bus business for
open-bidding by dividing into 4 zones will create tense competition
which would result in employees at the suffering end, companies
trying to undercut each other to win bids and may even result in
operating at losses and drop in service standard or even compromise
safety due to poor bus maintenance, exhausted drivers, etc.
Scenerio: each company got X no. of bus fleets and resources.
Each of them are ambitious and wanted to expand and try monopolise
the market and hence bid at a low price to try win more than 1 bid;
if not, all 4 bids!
Lets say 'A' company won 2 zones and its resources mutliplied by
2. 'B' and 'C' company won 1 zone each.
In the next bidding exercise after a few years, 'A' company got
to try harder to win back at least 2 zones as their resources are
already there. If they win back only 1 zone, the remaining huge
resource are gone into waste which they cannot afford to do so!
Then, 'B' and 'C' companies are hungry for a bigger pie and bid
aggressively too.
Such intense competition would result in unhealthy price
undercuts and eventually result in poor service and non-fulfillment
of service standards. Employees are likely to be further
pressurised in work, endure even longer work hours, got their
salaries further cut etc etc. Note that history had shown how
deplorable bus drivers' work conditions used to be, how the drivers
even resorted to puncturing the tyres or trying to make the bus
breakdown in order to find some rest! and how overworked drivers
caused a significant increase of bus accidents.
Despite a list of regulations and framework for bus operators to
follow to safeguard commuters interests, i bet they would not care
that much when it comes to bidding as they tend to worry more on
whether they can win sufficient tenders to sustain their already
available resources. Worse still, the bus market in sg is small and
there are only 4 main bids available for tender and yet the amount
of resources been expended on just 1 bid is overwhelming.
Therefore, I feel that the bus industry is rather different from
others such as construction industry and cannot be taken as a
learning example when come to issues like bidding.
I'd still support a duopolistic practice for the bus industry
but with a tighter regulatory framework to safeguard commuters
interest as well as the operators'.
