Well, to start off, this is Singapore not say Malaysia or some
other less developed country with plenty of land for many cars
& where private cars are cheap & whereby people who don't
like the quality of service in the public transport can take the
cheap & easy way out & buy their own car !!
That is the situation i'll say in Malaysia but certainly NO longer
the case in Singapore ! What does this mean for the future of
transport within Singapore ??
To me it means simply that the quality of public transport in
Singapore cannot be anything less than 1st class, now & into
the future, seriously speaking !
Otherwise, how to best 'compensate' people here for foregoing the
benefits of having their own private car & the use of it
?
There's been plenty of talk in recent years about getting more
people to use more public transport & less private car
transport in Singapore. The key appeal of a private car comprises
not just door-step convinence, but also the comfort issue etc.
Therefore, to best emulate the private car, the public transport
vehicles have to also pay attention to not just reliability, which
is 'basic' & 'understood' pre-requisite but also equally
important, in today's world & into the future as well, the
comfort issue as well !
Gone are the days where only reliability & economy are
important & the other issues less important, or worse regarded
as 'not important' !
Modern public transport vehicles in a place like Singapore have to
score EQUALLY well not just in reliability, but also in the safety,
performance & comfort aspects ! No more & certainly no less
!! All have become of equal importance.
Therefore only the finest buses & taxis in the world really do
deserve a place in Singapore, not only due to the land shortage
here but also because only the finest vehicles would best be able
to emulate the appeal of a private car !!!!
Which in turn is the best chance of getting more people here to use
public transport more & private cars less, if @ all so as to
achieve the objectives of reducing dependence on private car usage
here due to land constrains.
My stand has always been that the people in Singapore do deserve
THE best class of public transport here BUT only pay 'nominal'
fares to use them, with the rich Government subsidizing the bulk of
the costs ! Therefore the bus operators can then go for the best
buses even if it's also the more expensive ones (unfortunately so)
& get the Government to help out with part of the costs such
that even the toilet cleaner get the chance to ride in a top class
bus or taxi & pay not very different fares compared to in a
lousier class of vehicle !
This is already happening i observe with the latest taxis here,
which i find is a most welcome development. Nowadays here you flag
down a taxi on the roadside, you roughly pay similar fares whether
you ride in a modern top class taxi or a much lousier model ! In
buses here too, i notice a similar situation, although the
disparity is less obvious.
So that's the way to go ! One cannot afford to cut any more corners
by going for 2nd or 3rd class vehicles anymore here. By the way,
where did you get this impression that M-B spare parts cost double
that of Volvo's ??!?? Overall i certainly do NOT consider it so, as
otherwise the OMV of an M-B bus would also be double that of a
Volvo, which cannot be so, for a similar GVW class of model of
broadly similar specifications. You may be shocked to note there's
even 1 model of M-B 16t GVW bus-chassi with air-suspension &
charged-cooled engine in-use here whose OMV is even lower than a
Volvo or MAN, being around that of Dennis Lance only !!
Therefore in Singapore, it only makes sense to have as majority the
best class of buses anywhere, with a smaller number of the cheaper
& not so good models to serve as some yardstick of comparison
& also in case 1 make goes on strike etc., then there's 1 or 2
other makes to fall back on. Issues like spare parts costs &
servicing costs etc. would have to take a backseat with the main
priority increasing being doing the maximum possible (almost
irregardless of cost !) to reduce the dependency on the private car
here for as many people as possible.
