No way, especially svc 39 is now taking on TIBS head on. The
main disadvantage of svc 39 is that of speed, and SBST is already
asking their drivers to hurry up by shortening the journey time
from 1h to 50 mins to place it in a better position to compete with
TIBS. Moreover, extending svc 39 and putting it in a loop in
Punggol would cause the time and fare stage to increase, and it
loses a bigger, and more important pool of pax--those who work at
the Changi Airport Cargo Cmplx, holiday makers at Changi Beach and
those going to Pulau Ubin, not to mention NS men who have to get to
Pasir Ris to transfer the LAnce 211s to the ferry point.
Another point to note is that svc 3 had plied that route from Pasir
Ris and Tampines to Punggol already, and extending svc 39 would
cause a duplication of routes. Svc 39 load is jest beginning to
pick up and stabilise, and extending it would undoubtedly cause the
load to drop, and BTW, the load factor from Yishun to Punggol is
not that fantastic, there's svc 965 for all to see already.
If you are not convinced that svc 39 would not be extended, look at
svc 168 and svc 161 from Woodlands. SBST can put svc 168 into a
longer loop at sengkang , but it didn't because of the same
reasons, and it didnt put 161 into Jln Kayu also because of the
same reasons, and the load of 161 during its infancy is worse than
that of svc 39.
However, the opinion is still yours, and SBST, can do some silly
and illogical things as we had witnessed during the Phase II of the
NEL rationalisation.
