Yes, in terms of service quality, generally speaking, public
transport in SGP has the edge over that in MY. But i attribute that
firstly to the fact that compared to MY, SGP really has no choice
but to jackup the standard in public transport as unlike in MY or
many other countries with plenty of land, those there not happy
with public transport there can take the relatively cheap &
easy way out by buying their own car. This unfortunately tends not
so likely in SGP due to the perpetually much higher costs of cars
here. My stand has always been that the Government here owes it to
the people to provide a top class transport system since the
alternative of cheap private cars would never tend to materialise
given the land shortage problem in SGP. Secondly, when it comes to
managing almost anything SGP, due to the much smaller size over MY,
i consider has the 'natural' advantage in that it'll always tend to
be easier to manage a small plot of land over a much bigger one. In
MY, due to the vastness of the country, it would always remain more
challenging to run almost anything there compared to in SGP. More
manpower, more delegation, more need for competent top management
etc.
Therefore taking into account the more challenging environment in
MY due to the lesser physical proximity, the far more competitive
environment among bus operators in MY, amongst various other
resource constrains etc., my impressions of HI so far, from its
performance in operating CW 1 & 2 over the past year & now
CW3 so far, is still overall on the favourable side of
things.
I notice that HI pays its staff like drivers a fixed salary [which
i consider a good thing eventhough it means the company may have to
take a higher risk in so doing in case the revenue not as high as
expected etc.] compared to some other MY operators where it tends
to be too profit oriented to the extent that those other operator's
drivers overtake others to fight for passengers (like some taxi
drivers) or refuse to pick up certain passengers etc. because their
salaries tend to be tied very directly to the day's revenue !! So
far i've not encountered such undesirable behavior from HI's
drivers, which i have to regard as among the better ones in MY as a
whole ! If you read some of my other posts in this forum, you'll
should be able to understand why i hold such impressions.
I've even enough confidence to predict better things to from HI in
time to come. To my mind, HI has embarked on something which is
most unlikely that it would lose or want to give up on.
This idea of mine of SMS info service on demand of EAT for
interested regular passengers, is of course only an idea for now
& may not even be eventually needed if other solutions are
deemed sufficient to make their service reliable & prompt
enough. Implementing such a facility is of course more easily said
than done, as with almost anything else in such a much bigger
country compared to in SGP.
As regards serving the market, i'll put it that firstly, the
company must be able to find it financially viable to exist &
run the services. Having advanced beyond this 'basic corporate
need', then it can look into the more qualitative aspects of
service excellence & customer care etc. If there's not enough
money to even 'eat' in the 1st place, then not realistic to expect
it to provide anything more.
As for judgement on CW3 service levels, i'll consider it highly
premature to jump to conclusions of HI's inability to perform
satisfactorilly simply because it's charting new territory since
it's closest 'ex-competitor' [Maju on route 262] didn't go to
Jurong East. In situations like these, i not surprised even HI
themselves right now are still doing various trial & error
fine-tuning of their operational logistics as noone in the history
of SGP & MY has ever operated Jurong East to Kota Raya or
Larkin public bus service before CW3 existed.
Therefore i'll reserve any perceptions of sloppiness say to the day
when there's another operator plying exactly the same route since
it's only then that one can really gauge if 1 operator is more
sloppy over another etc. as an apple to apple to comparison always
tends to be more accurate than apple to say orange
comparison.
