Well, the following amendments could be made to my proposed
route 245:
1. Skip Jurong West Avenue 1 and Jurong West Street 51. Instead,
ply Corporation Road and Boon Lay Way to call at Lakeside MRT
Station.
2. Loop via Corporation Road to serve more areas of Taman
Jurong.
3. Merge the route into existing bus route 258, which currently
uses 6 double decker buses, so that less additional buses is
required and more direct bus connections can be provided.
If we merge it with bus route 258, I would recommend that the
route skips Jurong West Street 64 entirely, since it would call at
Lakeside MRT Station.
The merged route would be as such:
This alternative would increase the demand for existing route
258, as well as for my proposed route.
Given the estimated travel time of 101.52 minutes, the merged
bus service 258 would require 11 buses to maintain the same
frequency of 10 to 14 minutes. Since the existing bus service 258
already has 6 buses, it would need another 5 more buses. (better
than having a separate new route 245, which would require 7
buses.)
Considering that the merged route would be longer, the operating
hours should be adjusted to 5:04 am to 12:45 am, where the first
trips start at Yung Ho Road from 5:04 am and the last trips depart
Joo Koon Bus Interchange by 11:54 pm.
Based on my observations, 7 Single-Decker buses (83 pax) and 4
Double-Decker buses (133 pax) should be enough.
During peak periods, when all 11 buses are used, I expect around
100 passengers per Double-Decker and around 63 passengers per
Single-Decker (Total: 841 pax per 101.52 mins; 497 pax per peak
hour).
During regular hours, when only 8 buses are used, I expect
around 40 passengers on every bus (Total: 320 pax per 101.52 mins;
190 pax per regular hour).
The number of passengers should be around 5,028 per working day
and around 3,800 per weekend; 32,740 pax per week; 1,702,480 pax per
year.
Assuming only concession fares (around 60 cents) are collected
during peak hours and only adult fares (around 131 cents) are
collected during non-peak hours, I expect the merged bus service
258 to collect around $4,579 of fare revenue per working day, and
around $4,978 of fare revenue per weekend; $32,851 fare revenue of
per week; $1,708,252 of fare revenue
per year.
Although less than what an average bus service in Singapore
collects (around $2,056,000 of fare revenue per year), more revenue
could be collected as new developments are completed along the
route, and the merged bus service 258 would eventually be on par
with the average. :)
So, extending bus route 258 to Taman Jurong may be a better
option.
